Page 97 of Not Quite a Lady
Chapter Twenty Three
Lily resisted casting a guilty look back at the castle and urged the cob into a trot. The waters of the Aller glinted in the afternoon sunshine and had made her request to borrow the gig so that she could go along the valley a little with her sketchbook, perfectly understandable.
Lady Allerton and the girls were busy with preparations for the dance which they were adamant their guest should not be helping with, so permission was gladly granted and the cob was soon trotting towards the mine, the bundle of clothes Lizzie Armstrong had delivered in a bag on the seat beside Lily.
The other day she had seen an old shed, just the other side of the rise from the pithead, and she tied the cob up there on a long rein so it could crop the grass and reach the water trough.
When she slipped out of the door again and set off up the slope Lily was confident that even her aunt would not recognise her.
Her own stout boots protruded from a pair of flapping canvas trousers, a skirt apparently made of sacking was kirtled up to what seemed indecent heights and supported by the same broad leather belt which pulled in a woollen smock over a worn shirt. She had knotted her betraying hair into a kerchief and clapped the battered billycock hat Jinny had provided on top.
Her hands, protruding from the frayed sleeves, were far too white so she stopped by a spring and dabbled them in muddy water, splashing her face while she was at it.
Jinny Armstrong’s face when they met at their rendezvous confirmed Lily’s assumption that however bizarre she appeared, she most certainly did not look like the rich heiress from London town.
‘Now then,’ Jinny cautioned as she pocketed the promisedcoins, swung the pack she was carrying onto her shoulder and they began to walk towards the shaft head. ‘Yous stay behind me and do just what I does – and listen out for the banksman, he’s there to stop any accidents, so what he says, goes.’
‘Right.’
What is a banksman? How deep did Jack say?
‘Use your free hand and free foot to push off from th’walls. I’ll find yous a candle when we get down there.’
Then they were there, approaching a wooden platform under the great wheel, joining a group of women and boys. If she was going to back out, it had to be now.
‘Out the way, you daft bairns,’ Jinny administered a mild cuff round the head to a couple of boys who were scuffling. ‘Clarting about – don’t think I willna tell your ma on you.’
Distracted, Lily realised too late that they were next for the rope. Loops were knotted into it at intervals and here and there someone had thrust a stout stick through. ‘Like this.’ Jinny stuck her foot in a loop, wrapped her arm around the rope and began to sink into the hole. ‘Come on!’
Think of it like a stirrup.
Lily grabbed hold, pushed in her foot and found herself hanging in space, the hairy rope clutched to her bosom and rasping against her face. The rope jerked, swung her towards the sides, already darkening as they descended. Lily stuck out her free foot, found the wall, swung back.
How much longer? How deep are we?
The descent seemed endless, the darkness impenetrable. Her arm was aching and her leg, braced to support her, was beginning to tremble with the stress.
What would Jack say if she tumbled to her death? What would he feel?
Then light began to flicker on the walls, noise reached her ears and Jinny was grabbing her ankle.
‘Here you go, kick your foot free.’ And she was standing on roughly level, solid ground.
The girl pulled her back out of the way as the boy on the rope above her jumped down.
‘Take this.’ A tallow dip was pressed into her hand and she began to follow Jinny, her eyes straining in the dim, wavering light.
‘This be the main heading. A bit like the pike road. Watch out!’
A pair of boys pulling a great, laden wicker basket on runners passed them.
‘Stick to the sides is favourite,’ Jinny advised. ‘We’ve a way to go. Me da’s working his bord in a gallery right up t’end.’
Lily stumbled after the girl, trying to stop her tallow dip blowing out, fighting to keep her footing, her eyes wide in the gloom. She was no longer afraid, more awed by this alien, subterranean world full of men, women and children, all of whom seemed to know their business and to be perfectly at home in this hostile environment.
‘This be wor bord,’ Jinny announced suddenly, diving off down a side gallery.
Men were working here with picks, shovels, crowbars, hacking the lumps of coal out of the face by brute force.
