A Place Called Freedom Page 6

  He rolled over and looked across the slope. The deer grazed in peaceful ignorance. All the hunters were in position except Lizzie, who was still moving. Jay sighted on his stag. Then he slowly swung the barrel around until it pointed at Robert's back.

  He could say that his elbow slipped on a patch of ice at the crucial moment, causing him to drop his aim to one side and, with tragic ill fortune, shoot his brother in the back. His father might suspect the truth--but he would never be sure, and with only one son left, would he not bury his suspicions and give Jay everything he had previously reserved for Robert?

  Lizzie's shot would be the signal for everyone to fire. Deer were surprisingly slow to react, Jay recalled. After the first gunshot they would all look up from their grazing and freeze, often for four or five heartbeats; then one of them would move and a moment later they would turn as one, like a flock of birds or a school of fish, and run away, their dainty hooves drumming on the hard turf, leaving the dead on the ground and the wounded limping behind.

  Slowly Jay swung the rifle back until it was pointing at his stag again. Of course he would not kill his brother. It would be unthinkably wicked. He might be haunted all his life by guilty memories.

  But if he refrained, might he not always regret it? Next time Father humiliated him by showing preference for Robert, would he not grind his teeth and wish with all his heart that he had solved the problem when he could and wiped his loathsome sibling off the face of the earth?

  He swung the rifle back to Robert.

  Father respected strength, decisiveness and ruthlessness. Even if he guessed that the fatal shot was deliberate, he would be forced to realize that Jay was a man, one who could not be ignored or overlooked without dreadful consequences.

  That thought strengthened his resolve. In his heart Father would approve, Jay told himself. Sir George would never let himself be mistreated: his response to wrongdoing was brutal and savage. As a magistrate in London he had sent dozens of men, women and children to the Old Bailey. If a child could be hanged for stealing bread, what was wrong with killing Robert for stealing Jay's patrimony?

  Lizzie was taking her time. Jay tried to breathe evenly but his heart was racing and his breath came in gasps. He was tempted to glance over at Lizzie, to see what the devil was holding her up, but he was afraid she would choose that instant to fire, and then he would miss his chance; so he kept his eyes and his gun barrel locked on Robert's back. His whole body was as taut as a harp string, and his muscles began to hurt with the tension, but he did not dare move.

  No, he thought, this can't be happening. I'm not going to kill my brother. By God, I will, though, I swear it.

  Hurry, Lizzie, please.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move near him. Before he could look up he heard the crack of Lizzie's gun. The stags froze. Holding his aim on Robert's spine, just between the shoulder blades, Jay squeezed his trigger gently. A bulky form loomed over him and he heard his father shout. There were two more bangs as Robert and Henry fired. Just as Jay's gun went off, a booted foot kicked the barrel. It jerked upward, and the ball went harmlessly up into the air. Fear and guilt possessed Jay's heart and he looked up into the enraged face of Sir George.

  "You murdering little bastard," his father said.

  7

  THE DAY IN THE OPEN AIR MADE LIZZIE SLEEPY, AND soon after supper she announced that she was going to bed. Robert happened to be out of the room, and Jay politely sprang up to light her way upstairs with a candle. As they mounted the stone staircase he said quietly, "I'll take you down the mine, if you like."

  Lizzie's sleepiness vanished. "Do you mean it?"

  "Of course. I don't say things I don't mean." He grinned. "Do you dare to go?"

  She was thrilled. "Yes!" she said. Here was a man after her own heart! "When can we go?" she said eagerly.

  "Tonight. The hewers start work at midnight, the bearers an hour or two later."

  "Really?" Lizzie was mystified. "Why do they work at night?"

  "They work all day too. The bearers finish at the end of the afternoon."

  "But they hardly have time to sleep!"

  "It keeps them out of mischief."

  She felt foolish. "I've spent most of my life in the next glen and I had no idea they worked such long hours." She wondered if McAsh would be proved right and the visit to the pit would turn her view of coal miners upside-down.

  "Be ready at midnight," Jay said. "You'll have to dress as a man again--do you still have those clothes?"

  "Yes."

  "Go out by the kitchen door--I'll make sure it's open--and meet me in the stable yard. I'll saddle a couple of horses."

  "This is so exciting!" she said.

  He handed her the candle. "Until midnight," he whispered.

  She went into her bedroom. Jay was happy again, she noted. Earlier today he had had another row of some kind with his father, up on the mountain. No one had seen exactly what happened--they had all been concentrating on the deer--but Jay missed his stag and Sir George had been white with rage. The quarrel, whatever it was, had been easily smoothed over in the excitement of the moment. Lizzie had killed her stag cleanly. Both Robert and Henry had wounded theirs. Robert's ran a few yards, then fell, and he finished it off with another shot; but Henry's got away, and the dogs went after it and brought it down after a chase. However, everyone knew something had happened, and Jay had been quiet for the rest of the day--until now, when he became animated and charming again.

  She took off her dress, her petticoats and her shoes, then she wrapped herself in a blanket and sat in front of the blazing fire. Jay was such fun, she thought. He seemed to seek adventure, as she did. He was good-looking, too: tall, well dressed, and athletic, with a lot of wavy fair hair. She could hardly wait for midnight.

  There was a tap at the door and her mother came in. Lizzie suffered a guilty pang. I hope Mother doesn't want a long chat, she thought anxiously. But it was not yet eleven: there was plenty of time.

  Mother was wearing a cloak, as they all did to go from one room to another through the cold passages of Jamisson Castle. She took it off. Underneath she had on a wrap over her nightclothes. She unpinned Lizzie's hair and began to brush it.

  Lizzie closed her eyes and relaxed. This always took her back to her childhood. "You must promise me not to dress as a man again," Mother said. Lizzie was star tied. It was almost as if Mother had overheard her talking to Jay. She would have to be careful: Mother had a remarkable way of guessing when Lizzie was up to no good. "You're much too old for such games now," she added.

  "Sir George was highly amused!" Lizzie protested.

  "Perhaps, but it's no way to get a husband."

  "Robert seems to want me."

  "Yes--but you must give him a chance to pay court! Going to church yesterday you rode off with Jay and left Robert behind. Then again, tonight you chose to retire when Robert was out of the room, so that he lost the chance of escorting you upstairs."

  Lizzie studied her mother in the looking-glass. The familiar lines of her face showed determination. Lizzie loved her mother and would have liked to please her. But she could not be the daughter her mother wanted: it was against her nature. "I'm sorry, Mother," she said. "I just don't think of these things."

  "Do you ... like Robert?"

  "I'd take him if I were desperate."

  Lady Hallim put down the hairbrush and sat opposite Lizzie. "My dear, we are desperate."

  "But we've always been short of money, for as long as I can remember."

  "That's true. I've managed by borrowing, and mortgaging our land, and living most of the time up here where we can eat our own venison and wear our clothes until they have holes in them."

  Once again Lizzie felt a pang of guilt. When Mother spent money it was almost always on Lizzie, not on herself. "Then let's just go on the same way. I don't mind having the cook serve at table, and sharing a maid with you. I like living here--I'd rather spend my days walking in High Glen than sho
pping in Bond Street."

  "There's a limit to how much one can borrow, you know. They won't let us have any more."

  "Then we'll live on the rents we get from the crofters. We must give up our trips to London. We won't even go to balls in Edinburgh. Nobody will come to dinner with us but the pastor. We'll live like nuns, and not see company from one year's end to the next."

  "I'm afraid we can't even do that. They're threatening to take away Hallim House and the estate."

  Lizzie was shocked. "They can't!"

  "They can--that's what a mortgage means."

  "Who are they?"

  Mother looked vague. "Well, your father's lawyer is the one who arranged the loans for me, but I don't exactly know who has put up the money. But that doesn't matter. The point is that the lender wants his money back--or he will foreclose."

  "Mother ... are you really saying we're going to lose our home?"

  "No, dear--not if you marry Robert."

  "I see," Lizzie said solemnly.

  The stable yard clock struck eleven. Mother stood up and kissed her. "Good night, dear. Sleep well."

  "Good night, Mother."

  Lizzie looked thoughtfully into the fire. She had known for years that it was her destiny to rescue their fortunes by marrying a wealthy man, and Robert had seemed as good as any other. She had not thought about it seriously until now: she did not think about things in advance, generally--she preferred to leave everything until the last moment, a habit that drove her mother crazy. But suddenly the prospect of marrying him appalled her. She felt a kind of physical disgust, as if she had swallowed something putrid.

  But what could she do? She could not let her mother's creditors throw them out of their home! What would they do? Where would they go? How could they make a living? She felt a chill of fear as she pictured the two of them in cold rented rooms in an Edinburgh tenement, writing begging letters to distant relations and doing sewing for pennies. Better to marry dull Robert. Could she bring herself to, though? Whenever she vowed to do something unpleasant but necessary, like shooting a sick old hound or going to shop for petticoat material, she would eventually change her mind and wriggle out of it.

  She pinned up her unruly hair, then dressed in the disguise she had worn yesterday: breeches, riding boots, a linen shirt and a topcoat, and a man's three-cornered hat which she secured with a hatpin. She darkened her cheeks with a dusting of soot from the chimney, but she decided against the curly wig this time. For warmth she added fur gloves, which also concealed her dainty hands, and a plaid blanket that made her shoulders seem broader.

  When she heard midnight strike she took a candle and went downstairs.

  She wondered nervously whether Jay would keep his word. Something might have happened to prevent him, or he could even have fallen asleep waiting. How disappointing that would be! But she found the kitchen door unlocked, as he had promised; and when she emerged into the stable yard he was waiting there, holding two ponies, murmuring softly to them to keep them quiet. She felt a glow of pleasure when he smiled at her in the moonlight. Without speaking, he handed her the reins of the smaller horse, then led the way out of the yard by the back path, avoiding the front drive which was overlooked by the principal bedrooms.

  When they reached the road Jay unshrouded a lantern. They mounted their ponies and trotted away. "I was afraid you wouldn't come," Jay said.

  "I was afraid you might fall asleep waiting," she replied, and they both laughed.

  They rode up the glen toward the coal pits. "Did you have another row with your father this afternoon?" Lizzie asked him directly.

  "Yes."

  He did not offer details, but Lizzie's curiosity did not require encouragement. "What about?" she said.

  She could not see his face but she sensed that he disliked her questioning. However, he answered mildly enough. "The same old thing, I'm afraid--my brother, Robert."

  "I think you've been very badly treated, if that's any consolation."

  "It is--thank you." He seemed to relax a bit.

  As they approached the pits Lizzie's eagerness and curiosity heightened, and she began to speculate about what the mine would be like and why McAsh had implied it was some kind of hellhole. Would it be dreadfully hot or freezing cold? Did the men snarl at one another and fight, like caged wildcats? Would the pit be evil smelling, or infested with mice, or silent and ghostly? She began to feel apprehensive. But whatever happens, she thought, I'll know what it's like--and McAsh will no longer be able to taunt me with my ignorance.

  After half an hour or so they passed a small mountain of coal for sale. "Who's there?" a voice barked, and a keeper with a deerhound straining at a leash entered the circle of Jay's lantern. The keepers traditionally looked after the deer and tried to catch poachers, but nowadays many of them enforced discipline at the pits and guarded against theft of coal.

  Jay lifted his lantern to show his face.

  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Jamisson, sir," the keeper said.

  They rode on. The pithead itself was marked only by a horse trotting in a circle, turning a drum. As they got closer Lizzie saw that the drum wound a rope that pulled buckets of water out of the pit. "There's always water in a mine," Jay explained. "It seeps from the earth." The old wooden buckets leaked, making the ground around the pithead a treacherous mixture of mud and ice.

  They tied up their horses and went to the edge of the pit. It was a shaft about six feet square with a steep wooden staircase descending its sides in a zigzag. Lizzie could not see the bottom.

  There was no handrail.

  Lizzie suffered a moment of panic. "How deep is it?" she asked in a shaky voice.

  "If I remember rightly, this pit is two hundred and ten feet," Jay said.

  Lizzie swallowed hard. If she called the whole thing off, Sir George and Robert might get to hear of it, then they would say: "I told you it was no place for a lady." She could not bear that--she would rather go down a two-hundred-foot staircase without a handrail.

  Gritting her teeth, she said: "What are we waiting for?"

  If Jay sensed her fear he made no comment. He went ahead, lighting the steps for her, and she followed with her heart in her mouth. However, after a few steps he said: "Why don't you put your hands on my shoulders, to steady yourself." She did so gratefully.

  As they descended, the wooden buckets of water waltzed up the well in the middle of the shaft, banging against the empty ones going down, frequently splashing icy water on Lizzie. She had a scary vision of herself slipping off the stairs and tumbling crazily down the shaft, crashing into the buckets, overturning dozens of them before she hit the bottom of the shaft and died.

  After a while Jay stopped to let her rest for a few moments. Although she thought of herself as fit and active, her legs ached and she was breathing hard. Wanting to give him the impression she was not tired, she made conversation. "You seem to know a lot about the mines--where the water comes from and how deep the pit is and so on."

  "Coal is a constant topic of conversation in our family--it's where most of our money comes from. But I spent one summer with Harry Ratchett, the viewer, about six years ago. Mother had decided she wanted me to learn all about the business, in the hope that one day Father would want me to run it. Foolish aspiration."

  Lizzie felt sorry for him.

  They went on. A few minutes later the stairs ended in a deck that gave access to two tunnels. Below the level of the tunnels, the shaft was full of water. The pool was emptied by the buckets but constantly replenished by ditches that drained the tunnels. Lizzie stared into the darkness of the tunnels, her heart filled with mingled curiosity and fear.

  Jay stepped off the deck into a tunnel, turned, and gave his hand to Lizzie. His grasp was firm and dry. As she entered the tunnel he drew her hand to his lips and kissed it. She was pleased by this little piece of gallantry.

  As he turned to lead her on he kept hold of her hand. She was not sure what to make of this but she had no time to think about it.
She had to concentrate on keeping her feet. She plowed through thick coal dust and she could taste it in the air. The roof was low in places and she had to stoop much of the time. She realized that she had a very unpleasant night ahead of her.

  She tried to ignore her discomfort. On either side candlelight flickered in the gaps between broad columns, and she was reminded of a midnight service in a great cathedral. Jay said: "Each miner works a twelve-foot section of the coal face, called a 'room.' Between one room and another they leave a pillar of coal, sixteen feet square, to support the roof."

  Lizzie suddenly realized that above her head there was two hundred and ten feet of earth and rock that could collapse on her if the miners had not done their work carefully; and she had to fight to suppress a feeling of panic. Involuntarily she gave Jay's hand a squeeze, and he squeezed back. From then on she was very conscious that they were holding hands. She found that she liked it.

  The first rooms they passed were empty, presumably worked out, but after a while Jay stopped beside a room where a man was digging. To Lizzie's surprise the miner was not standing up: he lay on his side, attacking the coal face at floor level. A candle in a wooden holder near his head threw its inconstant light on his work. Despite his awkward position he swung his pick powerfully. With each swing he dug the point into the coal and prized out lumps. He was making an indentation two or three feet deep across the width of his room. Lizzie was shocked to realize that he was lying in running water, which seeped out of the coal face, flowed across the floor of his room, and drained into the ditch that ran along the tunnel. Lizzie dipped her fingers into the ditch. The water was freezing cold. She shivered. Yet the miner had taken off his coat and shirt and was working in his breeches and bare feet; and she could see the gleam of perspiration on his blackened shoulders.

  The tunnel was not level, but rose and fell--with the seam of coal, Lizzie presumed. Now it began to go up more steeply. Jay stopped and pointed ahead to where a miner was doing something with a candle. "He's testing for firedamp," Jay said.