Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 54

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 pit head 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 was supported by the same broad leather belt that 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 promised coins, swung the pack she was carrying on to 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 began to reach 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. Lily tried to slow down to watch, but Jinny tugged her wrist. ‘Don’t go getting underfoot now. Here’s Da.’

Lily found herself tucked into an alcove out of the way while Jinny went to speak to the dark figure ahead. The man put down his pick and straightened up as much as he was able in the undercut he was working on.

‘Good lass. I’m clamming for a drink.’ His accent was even thicker than Jinny’s, but had the attractive burr and lilt Lily was coming to like. ‘Load up for me, will yer? Tom’s gone to fetch more dips.’

‘Aye.’ The girl came back. ‘I’ve to help me da a while until me little brother gets back. You’d best go back to the foot of the shaft and wait there, ‘tis the safest place. Yous canna get lost, just to the end of the gallery and then left, back aways.’

‘I will do that, but I will not wait.’ Lily did not want the family to suffer any loss of work on her behalf. ‘I will go up with the next group of women who come along. Thank you very much for your trouble.’

Lily made her way back to the main heading, dodging the pickaxe-wielding men and flattening herself against the side as the boys came through with their loads of coal. Corves, that was it.

She was almost at the point where the gallery reached the heading when a familiar deep voice had her flattening herself back into the deep shadow. Jack.

He passed her without a glance, another man at his side carrying a long pole and a bundle and William Sykes bringing up the rear. Jack was stooping, unable to stand erect, even in the main passageway. Lily hesitated, then turned to follow. It was a wonderful opportunity to watch Jack, see what it was about his precious mine that engaged him so much, try to understand him. She could hardly get lost, she reasoned, so long as she did not turn off the heading, and her eyes were beginning to accustom themselves to the gloom.

They passed more galleries, the passage began to curve and Sykes started to call warnings down the galleries as they passed them. What it was about Lily could not make out, but answering shouts echoed back.

Finally they stopped. The heading stretched ahead into blackness with no glimmers of lights to be seen. The man with the long pole bent and began to tie the bundle to the head of it and William Sykes lit a candle, long, white and of fine wax

Oddly he appeared to be lifting and lowering it slowly. Lily crept closer. It still did not make sense. Now he was conferring with Jack, walking forward again, going through the same process, raising the candle from waist height to above his eye line. Lily inched nearer until she could have reached out and touched the skirts of Jack’s greatcoat.

‘Aye, there it is.’ All three men were gazing at the flame, held near the roof now. ‘See the ghost?’

And sure enough, at the top of the flame, a cap of eerie blue light danced.

‘I’ll light up, shall I, guv’nor?’ the man with the pole queried.

‘Do that.’ Lily could make out Jack’s nod of approval. ‘And be careful, Sam, I think this one is going to be big.’

Jack reached out a hand and braced himself more comfortably against the wall of the heading while Will set down the candle on the floor and Sam finished securing the bundle of cloth and kindling on the end of the pole. It would be a few more minutes yet—both men were experienced at this and knew it was foolhardy to rush things.

The rock felt warm under his hand and he flexed his fingers, feeling the fissures and nodules. Almost he could believe he could detect a heartbeat, slow and deep.

His land, reaching down into the depths of the earth. He smiled in the near-darkness, recalling his instinctive recoil when Lily had suggested selling some of it the other day. Practical, sensible Lily. He had not explained his revulsion to her at all well, but then how could he, when it was something he had never articulated to himself?

‘Got any twine, sir?’ It was Will, clasp knife in hand. ‘This stuff’s right rubbish.’

‘Yes, here.’ Jack fished in his pocket and went back to brooding. But talking to Lily had made him realise how blessed he was in owning all that land, in possessing it down to the very roots of the earth. How rich.

Gazing into the blackness until spots of light began to swim in front of his eyes, Jack probed that thought. Rich. Rich in land and in minerals and in history. Rich enough to match Lily’s cash wealth, as an equal. Rich enough for them to discount both her money and his title.

Neither meant anything any more, he realised, not when it came to loving Lily. Not his pride, his land, her money, her stubbornness. He was a man, she was a woman and he loved her. Could she love him, after all that had passed between them? There was only one way to find out and that was to talk to her and court her.

‘That’ll do it, Sam lad.’ Will’s voice cut through his thoughts, jerking him back into the present and its dangers. ‘You moving back, sir?’

‘No, I’ll stay here.’

Sam bent, set light to the bundle and began to push the blazing ball forward along the ground on the end of its pole. The flames began to change colour, closer and closer to the ghost blue. ‘Here we go, I reckon.’ He set his foot on the end of the pole and levered it up so the fire lifted towards the ceiling.

Braced, like the others, to throw himself down, Jack half-turned, some instinct warning him they were not alone. At the edge of the light, just behind him, there was an indistinct figure. ‘Get back, you bloody fo—’

The gas exploded with a roar and time slowed. Jack threw himself back, hitting the figure, landing on top of it on the hard ground even as the flames ripped past over their heads, filling his vision with fire and his lungs with heat. He burrowed his head down, wrapping the wings of his greatcoat over both of them. The figure was slight, he realised as his senses recovered from the blast. A lad, silly young idiot. Or a woman.

The smell of fire and burning gases and dust subsided. The singing in his ears cleared. Face down, he could see nothing, but he could smell, and he could hear.

Smell not coal, not dirt and sweat as he expected, but jasmine and soap and the haunting scent of feminine skin. And hear someone gasping for breath under the weight of him, and a familiar voice muttering, ‘Ouch! You great lummock, what did you have to do that for?’

‘Lily? Lily?’