The Earl and the Hoyden. Mary Nichols

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      ‘Is it worked out?’

      ‘No, my lord, but it’s got mighty deep, two hundred foot and more. After all the rain we’ve had, there’s a deal of water down there and the pumping engine don’ seem able to shift it all. Mind your head, my lord, the roof’s low.’

      Roland did not need telling; the lantern cast an eerie glow over a narrow tunnel running steeply downwards. They had to proceed in single file, almost bent double. And then it suddenly opened out to a huge vault. Roland stepped cautiously forwards and, taking the lantern from Bunty, swung it over a great void, noticing the ladder attached to the side, disappearing into the murk below his feet. He picked up a stone and dropped it down the hole. After several seconds he heard the splash. ‘Come, let us go back and you can show me the rest.’

      Back on the surface, they passed several men who had just come up from a different level and were extinguishing the candles stuck on their hats. Two young lads, stripped to the waist, were pushing a loaded truck on rails. Their guide led them to the washing floor where the ore was separated from the dirt and other minerals in running water. ‘In Mr Cartwright’s day it was done by small boys,’ Bunty told Roland as they walked on. ‘But Miss Cartwright won’t have them standing in water in bare feet and now it’s the bigger lads who do it and they are provided with boots.’

      They arrived at another building where the ore was crushed to prepare it for smelting, work which was done by women, usually the wives of the miners. Next was a blacksmith’s shop, where the smithy sharpened the miners’ picks and drills, and the changing house, where the single men lodged, which was ill lit and gloomy. Everything was covered in fine, grey dust. They were just going to walk up the hill to look at the smelting mill when Charlotte arrived on horseback. Seeing the two men, she dismounted and strode over to them. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded without preamble.

      ‘Assessing the situation,’ Roland answered lightly.

      ‘Oh, I see, you still think this is Amerleigh land.’

      ‘Naturally I do.’

      ‘Then you are mistaken. I would have expected your lawyer to have told you that.’

      ‘He told me that it was wrested from the late Earl under extreme duress.’

      ‘I know nothing of duress.’

      ‘No, I can understand you would not even know the meaning of the word,’ Roland said. ‘But I can tell you no gentleman would have dunned another in so vindictive a fashion.’ His emphasis on the word gentleman was not lost on her.

      ‘And no honest man would renege on a debt,’ she retorted.

      He wondered if she knew exactly how the debt had occurred. ‘My father offered the capital sum back, but your father insisted on exorbitant interest.’

      ‘There is nothing illegal about that.’

      ‘No, but my father would have found it given time. He was not given time simply because your father was set on making himself more money from the deposits in this mine.’

      She laughed, wondering if there were any truth in what he said. ‘I suppose I am to take it that you are going on with that ridiculous claim.’

      He had been wondering if it was worth the time and money, not to say stress, the lawsuit would involve. Thinking about what Mountford had told him, it seemed to him his father was as much to blame as Mr Cartwright. The old Earl should not have spent the money he had been given before making sure his son would do as he wanted, and when he had not, should have offered it back immediately without being asked, then Cartwright could not have dunned him. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other, a silly squabble that should never have occurred. Roland regretted that he had been involved, albeit unwittingly. On the other hand, if the mine really did belong to the Amerleigh estate, the profits could certainly be put to good use. ‘You could revert the land to the Amerleigh estate and then there would be no need for the lawsuit to continue.’

      ‘Certainly not,’ she said, determined not to give an inch. ‘I am about to open up a new adit. Now, please leave. I am too busy to argue with you.’

      Roland bowed and returned to his mount, followed by Travers, doing his best to keep a straight face.

      ‘You may laugh,’ Roland told him as they rode back to the village. ‘She is a veritable shrew, but I shall get the better of her, you shall see.’

      ‘Oh, I am sure you will, Major.’ Travers found it difficult to give his master his proper title, but Roland did not mind that. As far as he was concerned he was going into battle and it was one he might enjoy, considering no one was likely to be killed because of it.

      ‘Miss Cartwright, ’tis madness,’ Jacob Edwards told her the morning after her encounter with the Earl at Browhill. He had been summoned to Mandeville to be told she wanted to release funds for a new shaft to the Browhill mine. He was a young man of thirty, dressed in an impeccable dove-grey morning coat and pristine shirt. No one seeing him would have believed he had once wandered barefoot about the village lanes in torn breeches. ‘It is not like you to go on beyond the point of a venture making a profit.’

      ‘Profit is not everything.’

      This statement made him laugh; it was so unlike her. ‘If not profit, what do you hope to gain?’

      ‘Gain nothing,’ she said, ‘but keep everything.’

      ‘I am not very good at riddles. Pray explain.’

      She began pacing the room impatiently, swishing her grey skirt about her as she turned at the end of each perambulation. He watched, admiring her shapely figure and striking features. He had admired her for years, ever since he had come across her as a child, but she gave no indication that she was aware of it or would consider an approach by him. In her eyes he was simply her factotum, someone to carry out her orders, occasionally to advise, never to look on with affection. He doubted she was capable of it.

      ‘I do not want Amerleigh given the slightest opportunity to repossess it,’ she said.

      ‘The land might have been part of his domain, but he never mined it, nor did his father,’ he said. ‘The late Earl never established a claim to mining rights.’

      ‘Would he need to, given he owned the land?’

      ‘I do not know.’

      ‘Then find out.’

      ‘Very well, ma’am.’ He bowed himself out and she soon followed. She had spent the morning at the Scofield Mill, supervising the loading of barges with bales of cotton cloth, to be taken to Liverpool by river and canal for loading on to the Fair Charlie. She hated the name, but as her father had chosen it to mark her birth, she would not change it. As soon as it was safely aboard, she had returned home to meet Jacob Edwards. Now, with an unaccustomed hour or two to fill, she decided to go for a ride. Not for a single minute did she admit, even to herself, that she hoped she might meet the Earl. The confrontation the day before had roused her in a way that nothing had ever done before. Accustomed as she was to making deals, striking a hard bargain, taking it for granted her orders would be obeyed, it was a refreshing change to have to fight for something. It was the battle itself that put the gleam into her eye.

      She went to the kitchens, sent May to the stables to ask Dobson СКАЧАТЬ