Her husband,Ted Bolton,had been killed in the pit,twenty-two years ago,twenty-two years last Christmas,just at Christmas time,leaving her with two children,one a baby in arms.Oh,the baby was married now,Edith,to a young man in Boots Cash Chemists in Sheffield.The other one was a schoolteacher in Chesterfield;she came home weekends,when she wasn't asked out somewhere.Young folks enjoyed themselves nowadays,not like when she,Ivy Bolton,was young.
Ted Bolton was twenty-eight when lie was killed in an explosion down th'pit.The butty in front shouted to them all to lie down quick,there were four of them.And they all lay down in time,only Ted,and it killed him.Then at the inquiry,on the masters'side they said Ted had been frightened,and trying to run away,and not obeying orders,so it was like his fault really.So the compensation was only three hundred pounds,and they made out as if it was more of a gift than legal compensation,because it was really the man's own fault.And they wouldn't let her have the money down;she wanted to have a little shop.But they said she'd no doubt squander it,perhaps in drink!So she had to draw it thirty shillings a week.Yes,she had to go every Monday morning down to the offices,and stand there a couple of hours waiting her turn;yes,for almost four years she went every Monday.And what could she do with two little children on her hands?
But Ted's mother was very good to her.When the baby could toddle she'd keep both the children for the day,while she,Ivy Bolton,went to Sheffield,and attended classes in ambulance,and then the fourth year she even took a nursing course and got qualified.She was determined to be independent and keep her children.So she was assistant at Uthwaite hospital,just a little place,for a while.But when the Company,the Tevershall Colliery Company,really Sir Geoffrey,saw that she could get on by herself,they were very good to her,gave her the parish nursing,and stood by her,she would say that for them.And she'd done it ever since,till now it was getting a bit much for her;she needed something a bit lighter,there was such a lot of traipsing around if you were a district nurse.
'Yes,the Company's been very good to me ,I always say it.But I should never forget what they said about Ted,for he was as steady and fearless a chap as ever set foot on the cage,and it was as good as branding him a coward.But there,he was dead,and could say nothing to none of 'em.'
It was a queer mixture of feelings the woman showed as she talked.She liked the colliers,whom she had nursed for so long;but she felt very superior to them.She felt almost upper class;and at the same time a resentment against the ruling class smouldered in her.The masters!In a dispute between masters and men,she was always for the men.But when there was no question of contest,she was pining to be superior,to be one of the upper class.
The upper classes fascinated her,appealing to her peculiar English passion for superiority.She was thrilled to come to Wragby;thrilled to talk to Lady Chatterley,my word,different from the common colliers'wives!She said so in so many words.Yet one could see a grudge against the Chatterleys peep out in her;the grudge against the masters.
'Why,yes,of course,it would wear Lady Chatterley out!It's a mercy she had a sister to come and help her.Men don't think,high and low-alike,they take what a woman does for them for granted.Oh,I've told the colliers off about it many a time.But it's very hard for Sir Clifford,you know,crippled like that.They were always a haughty family,standoffish in a way,as they've a right to be.But then to be brought down like that!And it's very hard on Lady Chatterley,perhaps harder on her.What she misses!
I only had Ted three years,but my word,while I had him I had a husband I could never forget.He was one in a thousand,and jolly as the day.Who'd ever have thought he'd get killed?I don't believe it to this day somehow,I've never believed it,though I washed him with my own hands.But he was never dead for me,he never was.I never took it in.'
This was a new voice in Wragby,very new for Connie to hear;it roused a new ear in her.
For the first week or so,Mrs Bolton,however,was very quiet at Wragby,her assured,bossy manner left her,and she was nervous.With Clifford she was shy,almost frightened,and silent.He liked that,and soon recovered his self-possession,letting her do things for him without even noticing her.