His mother must have used a packet of starch on his shirt alone, the way the collar was chafing his neck. He tried to ease his sore flesh by pulling the rock-hard material away from his throat but to little effect. The unnatural feel of the stiff linen and his Sunday suit added to the overall unsettled feeling which had gripped him for months, even though he told himself over and over again he was a most fortunate man. Tilly was a bonny lass and she loved him, even with his moods over the last little while. He hadn’t been easy, he knew that, but he’d make it up to her in the coming days. They had their own place where they could shut the front door and to hell with the rest of the world. Tilly’d had some savings and he’d had a bit and she’d made the place right bonny. She had taste, he’d give her that.
‘This is your wedding day, man.’ Andrew spoke in his ear. ‘And you look like you’ve lost a bob and found a farthing.’
Andrew had a knack for catching him on the raw and today was no exception. Telling himself to go easy, Matt smiled. ‘I’m not surprised, the way this shirt’s scraping the flesh off my bones. Mam was determined I’d look the part, no doubt about that.’
‘Aye, she always was a bit handy with the starch. Olive knows not to use above a thimbleful or else she gets it thrown back at her. Start as you mean to carry on, that’s my motto.’
Matt made no comment. It was well-known within the family that Olive wore the trousers, although she did it so discreetly Andrew never seemed to catch on.
‘Tilly looks bonny the day, you’re a lucky man.’
Again Matt said nothing.Tilly and her mam had been working on ‘the dress’ for months; it was one of the things which had made him feel the noose was tightening round his neck. How could he say he wanted to call things off when her own da had told him it was impossible to move in their front room without treading on patterns and pieces of material, and that Tilly and her mam talked of little else?
‘Driving me to drink, lad, I can tell you,’ Tilly’s da had said, tongue in cheek, a couple of weeks ago when they’d sat talking over a pint in the Colliery Inn one evening. ‘I don’t know who’s the more worked up, Tilly or her mam, but it’s got so I hardly dare open me mouth. Take today, for instance. The lass was having another of these “fittings” – that dress has been on and off more times than I’ve had hot dinners – and all I said was, trying to be helpful, like, was that I thought she’d put on a bit of weight in the last week or two because it was pulling a bit round the’ – he indicated his chest. ‘By, you’d have thought I’d confessed to some crime or other. Tilly went off the deep end and then her mam had a go at me. I was glad to get out of it and I shan’t go back till I’m three sheets to the wind neither. Women, they’re another species, lad. Another species.’
‘Mam says you’re not taking a day or two off then?’ Andrew swigged at his glass of beer. ‘Straight back to work on Monday?’
‘Can’t afford to lose more than one shift,’ Matt said shortly. It was true; the furniture had taken every last penny but Tilly had wanted nice things and, feeling as he did, guilt had caused him to give in to her every whim.
‘Aye, well, mebbe that’s no bad thing, the way things are with the strikes an’ all. You never know when we’re going to be out for three months or more like we were two years ago. Get the shifts in while you can, that’s what I say, and put a bit by for a rainy day. There’s going to be a few of them coming up if you listen to the fighting talk of some of ’em in the union. Old Enoch Murray was claiming there’s nigh on sixty-five thousand in membership now, that’s a force to be reckoned with and the owners know it. But like I said to him, you corner a rat and it gives no quarter.’
Matt moved restlessly. The last thing he wanted on his wedding day was Andrew going on about the unions. Not that he didn’t agree with him, he did. When the Independent Labour Party which had formed last year had sent its national organiser, Tom Taylor, to Durham he’d gone to listen to him, and his socialist teaching and ideas had struck a chord in every miner present. But change would carry a price. Taylor had said that an’ all, and it wouldn’t be the owners in their fancy houses who’d pay it but the people who could least afford it, ordinary working-class men and women.
‘. . . be a long hard fight and a bitter one, you mark my words.’ Andrew was still talking.
Matt glanced at his brother. ‘I’d better do my duty and thank folk for coming.’
‘Aye, aye man, you do that.’ But then, before he could turn away, Andrew caught his arm. ‘What’s up?’ he said quietly, and for once there was no thread of mockery or provocation in his voice. ‘You haven’t been yourself for weeks. That fall when we were stuck underground a while put the wind up you? Because we all feel the same, to a greater or lesser degree. You just have to work through it till it gets better, that’s all.’
Matt stared at him. Andrew had always been the joker, the clown, the brother who had pulled his leg until he’d wanted to hit him on occasion and who could wind him up quicker than you could say Jack Robinson. For years now he’d got used to thinking of Andrew as a pain in the backside, and yet he could see from his brother’s face that he was genuinely concerned. Contrition brought a thickness to his voice when he said, ‘It’s not that, not really. To be honest I think it’s a mixture of things all come at once. The fall, getting wed, wondering if we’d get a house in time – Tilly had set her heart on starting in her own place, you know what women are.’
‘Oh aye. We started off in Olive’s mam’s front room if you remember and Olive couldn’t rest till we were out of there.’
‘It’ll be better now the big day’s over and we’re settled.’ Matt forced himself to smile. ‘Tilly’s been in a two-an’-eight for weeks and it rubs off, you know what I mean?’
Andrew nodded, satisfied. Matt wondered what his brother would have said if he’d told him the truth. But then what was the truth? He was damned if he knew any more. He punched Andrew lightly on the arm. ‘You’re out of ale, man. Go and get a refill before it runs out. And Tilly’s mam’ll be bringing out the sandwiches and cake in a while.’
‘I’m still stuffed from earlier but I won’t say no to a drop more beer.’
He hadn’t seen Tilly approach but as Andrew left she took his arm, smiling up into his face. ‘Hello, husband.’
‘Hello, wife.’
She giggled, leaning against him so he put his arm around her waist. The top of her head came to his shoulder and her veil billowing out from the comb of fresh wild ox-eye daisies her mother had gathered that morning and threaded through the comb was slightly scratchy against his face.
‘I’ve had two glasses of wine,’ she whispered, ‘and I feel a bit tipsy.’
‘I’ve had several glasses of ale and I feel tipsy too.’
She giggled again. ‘It’s been a nice wedding, hasn’t it?’
‘Aye, it has.’ The September day had conspired to add its blessing by providing a humid warmth devoid of any breeze as the wedding party had walked home from the church through dusty streets. The north-east had been experiencing an Indian summer for the last two weeks, and for days the old-timers had been predicting a storm to end the hot spell. Tilly had been convinced the weather would break the day before the wedding, and now Matt murmured, ‘You needn’t have worried about it raining, need you? I was right. Let that be a lesson to you to take heed of your husband.’
He was feeling better now. Tilly was his wife and this was the start of their new life together. That’s how he had to think from this day on. Any ‘what ifs’ had to be put aside; they had no place in his marriage. He loved Tilly, and he would grow to love her more as they settled into married life. That was the natural way of things.
To seal the thought, he bent his head and kissed Tilly full on the lips. As he felt her mouth immediately respond to his, his resolve strengthened. He had promised to love, honour and cherish this woman and she was a good lass. Everything would be all right from now on.
A heavy twilight blanketed the still air later that evening as the newlyweds walked through the shadowed streets of the village to their new home in the company of Matt’s parents and a couple of other wedding guests who lived close by. Constance’s grandparents had left the festivities earlier, and Tilly had been glad to see them go. She intended to make sure they saw little of the Grays from this day forth.
Matt whisked her up into his arms amid cheers from the others when they reached their front doorstep, and both of them were laughing as he carried her across the threshold. He kicked the door shut but still held her against his chest as he kissed her long and deeply, and then he carried her upstairs.
He set her on her feet by the high double bed they had purchased from the village carpenter who had his premises next to the smithy in Plawsworth Road. Tilly had insisted on a new bed although he’d had a bonny secondhand one in the back of the cavernous room where he worked which took up the whole of the bottom floor of his house. ‘It’s going to be the beginning of our life together and I don’t want to start it where someone else has been,’ she’d pleaded when he’d pointed out how much money they could save in buying the other bed. ‘I don’t mind the wardrobe and anything else being secondhand, but not the bed.’
Tilly’s mam had made them a magnificent patchwork quilt as a wedding present, but now he pushed it aside with scant ceremony, revealing the coarse linen sheets scented with tiny muslin bags of lavender. ‘Come here,’ he said softly, sitting down.
She came to stand in front of him, her eyes bright as he began to undress her. Her wedding dress had a row of small satin-covered buttons from the V of the bodice to several inches below her waist, and as his work-roughened fingers which already bore evidence of his occupation in the tiny blue indentations beneath his skin fumbled to release them, Tilly gave one of her throaty giggles. ‘More haste, less speed, lad,’ she murmured provocatively.
When the dress pooled at her feet she stepped out of it and Matt undid the strings of her waist petticoat. She now stood in the full under-petticoat which she’d made as part of her trousseau. It was a fine, delicate thing, edged with lace, and her bloomers were of the same material. Her skin, glowing with health, had a slight sheen to it and her voluptuous breasts were pushed high above the laced bodice. She had made the undergarments with the wedding night in mind, knowing it was the most important night of her life. She had to captivate Matt, bewitch him. He mustn’t be allowed to think . . .
Still seated on the edge of the bed, Matt surveyed his wife. Through the tide of rising passion that had turned his body as hard as a rock, he was conscious of a faint feeling of shock at Tilly’s attire. Then he told himself not to be so daft. Tilly had done this for him, perhaps all lasses did the same on their wedding day. Whatever, there was no reason for him to think that she looked like a floozy. Aware she was waiting for him to respond, he said thickly, ‘You’re bonny, lass. Beautiful.’
Quickly he began to undress and Tilly watched him for a moment before reminding herself of the part she was playing. Walking round the side of the bed she climbed under the sheets, wriggling out of her bloomers. She had already decided an innocent maiden probably wouldn’t take off the petticoat and so, covertly now, she watched Matt continue to disrobe.
He was a grand-looking man. His body was better, more muscular and well developed, than Rupert’s, but then it would be, Matt being a miner. She knew she was going to enjoy this side of married life. Rupert had once said she was like a man with regard to the sating of her bodily needs, and although she had pretended to be offended she’d secretly agreed. From puberty she’d known the fires which burned in her didn’t seem to burn in other girls. Hence her dropping into Rupert’s lap like a ripe plum. And he hadn’t been slow to take full advantage of her.
Tilly’s mouth pulled tight for a moment and then she schooled her features into what she hoped was a shy smile as Matt slid in beside her, as naked as the day he was born.
Matt didn’t speak as he drew her into his arms and held her close. His attitude was one of restraint despite his huge arousal. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered again after a few moments. ‘And I’m glad we waited now. It makes it more special. You’re not frightened of me, are you? I’ll be gentle, I promise.’
Experiencing a rare feeling of shame, Tilly snuggled against him for answer. After tonight she could be herself, but for now she had to be careful.
The room was warm and the shadows deep. As Matt began to kiss and caress her Tilly’s passion rose to meet his. It had been some time since Rupert had touched her and she had felt the enforced celibacy keenly. Before she had told him about the baby their intimacy had been a daily occurrence, most of the time.
It was another ten minutes before the marriage was consummated. Matt lay on top of her for a few seconds more and then heaved himself away. He sat on the side of the bed, his back to her, and he didn’t move or speak.
Tilly held her breath. After a few moments, her voice small, she whispered, ‘Matt? What’s wrong? What’s the matter?’
Matt’s shoulders tensed but he didn’t trust himself to look at her right at this moment in time. Not without doing something that would have him sent down the line. All this time –
all this time
– she’d been making a monkey out of him. This was no pure maiden lying in the bed. The abandonment she’d shown and the things she had encouraged just might be explained away by saying she was a naturally warm and giving woman, even how her hands and tongue had pleased him could – at a stretch – come under the same thinking, but once he had taken her he had known. He’d only had one virgin in his life and that had been Amy Croft. They’d both been fifteen years old and the hormones had been raging, and one hot Sunday afternoon when they’d taken a walk near Findonhill Farm to watch the haymaking, more than haymaking had gone on. But even if he’d never had Amy he would have known Tilly was no virgin. She’d been with a man.