me your names.’ He asked because he thought he should know all his people, and they were still his people, even if circumstances meant they had to work in the mill.
‘I am Elizabeth Biggs,’ the elder said. ‘This is Matilda.’ Her sister, too shy to speak, looked at her feet.
‘And do you enjoy your work?’
‘It’s work, ain’t it?’ Beth said. ‘Better than the workhouse anyday.’
Everyone had gone into the mills and the clanging of the bells had suddenly stopped. ‘Oh, my, we’re late.’ Beth grabbed Matty by the hand and ran towards the gates just as they were being closed. Roland watched, expecting the gatekeeper to hold them open for the girls, but they were shut in their faces. They stood for a moment, then turned sorrowfully away, their shoulders drooping.
‘Why doesn’t he let you in?’ he asked them.
‘No one goes in after the bell stops,’ Beth told him. ‘We lose a day’s pay. It’s to teach us not to be late.’
‘But you were not late. You were here, ready to go in. If I had not detained you…’ He stopped speaking and reached in his pocket for his purse. ‘Here,’ he said, offering them half a crown. ‘I made you late, so I must recompense you.’ It was more than the day’s wage they would lose and they hesitated. ‘Go on, take it,’ he urged, holding it out.
Beth accepted the coin, murmuring her thanks, and they scampered away just as Miss Cartwright bowled up in her curricle.
She drew up beside him. He doffed his hat. ‘Good morning, ma’am.’
‘What was the matter with Beth and Matty?’ she asked. ‘Was one of them not well?’
‘No, they were shut out for stopping to speak to me.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’ It was a question, not an apology, uttered stiffly.
‘I mean you must have misunderstood.’
‘No, I do not think I did. I spoke to them and they stopped to answer. It was a brief exchange only and the gatekeeper could see them quite clearly. He shut the gates in their faces. If that is how you treat your employees, Miss Cartwright, then I pity them.’
‘Save your pity for your own employees, my lord,’ she retorted and drove up to the gates, which were immediately opened for her. She disappeared through them and they were shut behind her, leaving him staring at the words Cartwright Mill painted in large letters on them.
Charlotte left the curricle in the yard where a small boy came to walk the pony away and look after it until she was ready to leave again, and went in search of William Brock. She was seething. To be criticised by the Earl of Amerleigh over her treatment of her employees was the outside of enough. At least she was employing them, which was more than could be said for him. ‘What is your policy over latecomers?’ she demanded.
He looked puzzled. ‘You mean the hands who are late for work?’
‘Yes, the hands.’
‘They are locked out, ma’am. It’s to teach them punctuality, Miss Cartwright. They are rarely late more than once.’
‘I assume from that you mean they lose a day’s pay.’
‘Yes, of course. It has always been so. All the others mills do it.’
‘Not this one, Mr Brock. The two I saw turned away today are good workers and now we have lost their labour for a day. That is not good business sense.’
‘Their looms are not idle, I can find good weavers who can manage two at a time.’
‘Not good enough. In future, you will instruct the gatekeeper to take the names of those who arrive late and you will see that they are deducted half an hour’s wages for every five minutes they are late. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said resentfully.
‘Good, now let us get on with the business of the day.’
They went on to discuss other matters, then she inspected the looms, peeped into the schoolroom where the young man she employed to give the children an hour’s tuition during the midday break was preparing his lessons. She could not afford to take all the children off their work at once, so they came to him in two shifts. They were given a good dinner and then settled down to lessons. Any that showed promise she intended to send to school. She hated employing children, but knowing that not to do so would harm their families, she tried to make their working conditions as pleasant as possible.
By the middle of the afternoon, she had done as much as was needed and, sending for the curricle, drove herself to the Shrewsbury office of Robert Bailey, her mining engineer, to talk to him about opening a new level. The encounter with the Earl that morning had added to her annoyance with him and made her all the more determined to thwart him. He was a thorn in her side. For the first time in her life she was being illogical and unbusinesslike, but she could not help it. She did not care what it cost, she wanted that new adit.
‘If you do not mind my saying so, Miss Cartwright,’ the engineer said. ‘You are thinking like a woman.’
‘I am a woman, Mr Bailey.’
‘So you are, but you have always figured things out like a man, pros and cons, objectively.’
‘And who is to say that I am not being objective now? The deep level is causing problems with flooding, so we need to abandon that and sink another. There is lead down there, you know it as well as I, and lead commands a very high price, so we weigh that up against the cost of bringing it to the surface and we arrive at the conclusion that it will take less than three years to make a handsome profit. And it will give work to many.’ Even while she was arguing with him, she was picturing Roland Temple, Earl of Amerleigh, standing where the engineer was standing now, telling her he would have his land back. When she had extracted all she could from the mine, she might offer to sell it back to him at a highly inflated price. She wondered if he would try to raise the money or give up. Why did she sense the Earl was as stubborn as she was? And why, oh, why did it matter?
Charles Mountford, who had been the family lawyer ever since the late Earl had inherited the title twelve years before, was in his forties, dark haired, dark eyed and dressed in black. He had been expecting his lordship, he said, after the usual greetings had been exchanged. ‘Please take a seat.’ He indicated a chair placed on the other side of his desk, then he sat down and began shuffling papers. ‘May I offer condolences on the demise of your father,’ he said. ‘And congratulations on your coming into your inheritance.’
‘And what exactly is my inheritance?’ Roland asked him. ‘Apart from the title, that is.’
‘Amerleigh Hall and its domain—very little else, I am afraid.’
‘I thought as much. Tell me what happened. My mother said something about a lawsuit.’
‘Yes, that has been unfortunate.’
Unfortunate for whom? Roland wondered; not for the lawyers, he was sure, but he did not speak aloud. ‘Tell me how it came about.’
