Page 95 of Not Quite a Lady
‘Be glad to, ma’am. If you’ll drive a little closer, that would be better, the ground’s that clarty, you’ll not want to be walking on it.’
‘Muddy,’ Caroline translated as they followed Mr Sykes. ‘We all used to know a lot of dialect words, but Mama would discourage us from using them and I have forgotten most of the less common ones. Jack now, if you hear him talking to one of the miners, you would think it a foreign language.’
Mr Sykes found them a patch of flagged yard to stand on, away from the worst of the mud.
Lily studied the miners with their loose canvas trousers and thick woollen shirts and smocks. Under the black-grimed faces she thought they looked fit and well-fed.
‘Is the money good?’ she asked the manager.
‘Three shillings a day for a collier,’ he replied, his eyes fixed on a disturbance nearer the pithead. ‘Compares well with a labourer around here. Excuse me a minute, ladies.’ He strode off to sort the problem out.
‘And the families have free coal and wages when the father is off sick,’ Caroline added. ‘The miners look down on the agricultural workers, believe me. And most of the family will work here, so it all adds up.’
She gestured towards a group who were walking towards them and Lily realised that they were girls and young women, coarse skirts kirtled up to reveal trouser legs below.
‘What do they do?’ The women were as black with coal dust as the men.
‘Load and pull corves underground,’ Caroline explained. ‘The young lads do it too, or work the ventilation shutters. There’s Jinny Armstrong, her elder sister works at the castle. They’re a nice family.’ Caroline waved and the young woman came across.
‘I dinnet look to see yous here, Miss Caroline. Our Lizzy says yous to be wed to Master Willoughby.’
‘So I am, Jinny. I am showing the mine to Miss France who is staying with us. Oh, excuse me, Lily, there is Mrs Sykes, come with her husband’s food I expect. I must just go and see how she does.’
Left alone with the girl Lily found she was being regarded politely, but without deference, by a pair of intelligent brown eyes. An idea was lurking in the back of her mind, but could she risk it without placing Jinny in a difficult situation?
‘Lord Allerton and his family have been very kind in explaining all about the mine to me,’ she remarked. ‘I am going to be investing some money in mines further south, and it is important I understand as much as possible.’
Jinny nodded. ‘I can see that you’d need to. Yous dinna want to be throwing your brass about.’
‘His lordship has been very helpful.’ Lily left the sentence trailing.
‘Aye, he’s a canny mon.’ Goodness knows what that meant, but it appeared to be approval.
‘The thing is, I need to see underground as well, only I don’t feel quite comfortable going down the mine with a man. But I can hardly say that to Mr Sykes, can I? It might hurt his feelings.’
Jinny appeared to accept this.
Lily crossed her fingers and pressed on. ‘And then Miss Caroline pointed you out. Would you be able to take me down? I would pay you, of course, I understand it would reduce the amount you could be earning. Miss Caroline explained all that. Would five shillings be about right?’
It was more than the family would make in the day, and could be explained by Lily’s ignorance about mining, but it was not so much that it might make Jinny suspicious that she was being bribed to do something wrong.
‘Tha’s more than generous, Miss. I’ll do it gladly, but yous canna be goin doon in those clothes.’
Lily was beginning to get her ear in now. ‘No, of course not. And Miss Caroline does not have anything suitable. Could you lend me something?’
‘Aye, I can that. I’ll send them up to castle by wor Lizzie. When would you be wanting to go down, Miss?’
‘Tomorrow is Sunday. Would Monday be convenient for you? I don’t know what time – Miss Caroline hadn’t explained that.’
‘About four in the afternoon, Miss. I fetch my da’s dinner then. If yous wait over yonder,’ she pointed to a small hut near the edge of the pithead area, ‘None of the men go over there.’
Caroline was walking back towards them, chatting happily to Mr Sykes.
‘Goodbye until Monday then, Jinny, and thank you. That’s a nice young woman,’ she commented to the manager.
‘Aye, Miss France. A God fearing, hard-working family, the Armstrongs.’
He took them over to see the winding gear, and despite his obvious misgivings, let Lily peep into the engine house. She was transfixed by the throbbing engine, the power of the great beams and the gush of water.
