2
Mary Ann Beckitt, née Scriven, and Jacob Tandy were married at noon on Easter Saturday. The Reverend John Mainwaring, the recently installed and increasingly popular vicar of St John’s, Kates Hill, officiated. Outside in the spring sunshine the party posed for photographs with Mary Ann in the centre in her new red velvet dress. Clover looked radiant in her sky-blue satin dress and her blue satin hat with its white lace brim. Jake said he wanted this marriage, unlike his first, to be a proper do and insisted they have a record of the event. So he engaged the services of an enterprising local young photographer called Tom Doubleday who had his own studio and darkrooms in Hall Street near the centre of the town. Tom was about twenty-five, or so Clover Beckitt estimated. With increasing interest, she watched him changing plates in the huge wooden camera that looked top-heavy stuck on its wooden tripod. When he’d finished, Jake asked Tom if he would like to return with the rest of the party to the Jolly Collier, where they were providing a meal and free beer. Clover was secretly delighted.
In addition to Clover and her mother, there were nine Scrivens in the form of the bride’s brothers and an unmarried sister. On Jake’s side, there were only four relatives in addition to himself and his daughter Ramona; his elderly mother and father, and younger brother, Elijah with his betrothed, Dorcas Downing, who was the daughter of a wealthy local industrialist. Old Man Tandy hacked in a corner and expectorated the product of his miner’s cough into the fireplace where it bubbled and hissed, only to be castigated by Elijah for making Dorcas, who was sensitive to such vulgar mannerisms, feel sick. Old Mrs Tandy unfastened her boots, slipped them off and presented her bunions, which were killing her, to anybody that was interested in inspecting them. Tables had been laid in a line down the middle of the taproom and trestles spanned the lot. When everybody had supped their first glass or two of free beer, this is where they sat. Zillah Bache, who was generally sober but not quite today, unsteadily served up the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables. Job Smith, shifty-eyed, served the beer.
Clover sat next to her new stepsister, Ramona, who, to Clover’s relief, was neat and tidy. She was also exceptionally pretty with an mop of fair curls, which remained unruly despite her determined attempts to tame. Her eyes were big and the colour of the sherry she was drinking. She seemed friendly and made conversation easily. Maybe Ned Brisco would like her. They talked, comparing their lives, likes and dislikes, interspersing their verbal explorations with comments to Tom Doubleday, the young photographer, who sat opposite. Tom’s blue eyes creased into the most pleasing smiles and, as his participation in their conversation increased, Clover was torn between his charm and the certain knowledge that she must get to know and befriend Ramona.
‘How long have you been a photographer, Mr Doubleday?’ she asked politely, placing her knife and fork together on her plate, for she had just finished her dinner.
‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, pleased with the interest he was getting from this lovely dark-haired girl with the smiling blue eyes and beautiful nose that looked so appealing in profile. ‘It’s something I drifted into. Even as a small boy I was interested in photography.’
‘Is it fiddly?’ Ramona chipped in, not about to be excluded. ‘It looks fiddly to me.’
‘Yes, it is a bit, Miss Tandy—’
‘Oh, please call me Ramona, Mr Doubleday.’
‘Yes, er…Ramona.’ He smiled into her alluring brown eyes. ‘It’s even more fiddly in the darkroom.’
‘In the darkroom?’ Ramona’s voice had an appealing, girlish croakiness about it. ‘I don’t know if I’d like it in a darkroom. Would I be scared, do you think?’
‘Not if you’re with somebody else.’
‘Would I need to be scared with somebody like you?’ Her eyes darted knowingly from Clover to Tom and Clover thought her new stepsister was maybe trying to be just a little provocative.
‘Do you have to work in complete darkness?’ Clover interjected, seizing the opportunity to get back into the conversation before Ramona completely hijacked it.
‘Yes, otherwise you’d fog the latent image on the plate,’ Tom explained. ‘It’s light-sensitive, you see, Miss Tandy.’
‘Miss Beckitt, but you can call me Clover,’ Clover corrected with a broad smile. ‘Ramona and I are stepsisters. That’s why we have different surnames.’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon. But Clover…Mmm, what a lovely name that is.’
‘Well, thank you, Mr Doubleday.’
Tom Doubleday nodded his acknowledgement. ‘Well now – with all this informality, I’d be obliged if you’d call me Tom.’
‘All right.’ Clover smiled delectably. ‘So, to get back to my question – Tom – does all this working in darkness mean you have to go through the whole process of developing your plate without even knowing your photo’s come out all right?’
‘Not just developing, Miss…er, Clover. To make the image so it’s not sensitive to light any more, you have to thoroughly wash off any developer – after a given time – then fix it in another solution we call hypo. But listen, forgive me. The last thing I want to do is bore you.’
‘I’d like to see it done,’ Ramona said. ‘It sounds ever so interesting.’
‘Well, it’s more frustrating than anything, Ramona,’ Tom said pleasantly. ‘Especially when you enlarge or make prints. You’re never quite sure how long to expose the paper to the negative. You waste a lot getting it right, and it’s expensive stuff.’
Zillah Bache served the pudding, hot apple pie and custard, and the girls’ conversation with Tom Doubleday continued. Clover was drawn to him inexorably. He was clean-shaven and his teeth were beautiful and even. As he spoke, she watched his lips and imagined how his kisses might feel. But she would dearly have preferred it if Ramona had not been there. She felt Ramona was a rival when she wanted her as a friend. Trouble was, she did not know the girl well enough to tell her to keep her pretty nose out of it.
Meanwhile, Job Smith tapped a firkin of old ale and presented everybody with a glassful. Elijah Tandy got to his feet and set about doing his duties as best man. He made a clever speech that made everybody laugh and asked them all to drink the health of the bride and groom. Then Jake Tandy thanked them all for their good wishes and said how lucky he was to be wed to somebody like Mary Ann. Mary Ann summoned a rare smile and Clover even thought she detected a blush in her mother.
While the tables were cleared and the trestles taken away, the guests drank more old ale, stretched their legs and stumbled about from one conversation to another, noisily putting the world to rights. The women complained about their men while the men cag-magged about work, feeling obligated to denigrate their gaffers. Job Smith, meanwhile, tapped a second firkin of old ale and began doling it out. Ramona Tandy, to Clover’s surprise, played an old accordion adeptly while many sang along raucously to the tunes.
‘They reckon as all the steam engines at the pits am gunna be replaced by ’lectric motors afore long,’ said one of Mary Ann’s brothers to another above the hubbub. It was Frederick, a miner, who had just been given a fresh glassful of old ale.
‘Like the trams,’ remarked the other.
Frederick took a swig from his glass. ‘And the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. Bloody stinking, noisy articles, steam engines. Why, you cort hear yourself think when you’m a-standing by ’em. And somebody’s gorra
