A Place Called Freedom (1995) Read online

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “I’m so glad to be above ground again,” she said gratefully. “I can’t thank you enough for carrying me. You must be exhausted.”

  “You weigh a good deal less than a corf full of coal,” he said with a smile.

  He talked as if her weight were nothing, but he looked a little unsteady on his legs as they walked away from the shaft. However, he had never faltered on the way up.

  Daybreak was still hours away, and it had started to snow, not in gently drifting flakes but in driving icy pellets that blew into Lizzie’s eyes. As the last of the miners and bearers came out of the shaft, Lizzie noticed the young woman whose child had been christened on Sunday—Jen, her name was. Although her child was only a week or so old, the poor woman was carrying a full corf. Surely she should have taken a rest after giving birth? She emptied the basket on the dump and handed the tallyman a wooden marker: Lizzie guessed the markers were used to calculate the wages at the end of the week. Perhaps Jen was too much in need of money to have time off.

  Lizzie continued to watch because Jen looked distressed. With her candle raised above her head she darted among the crowd of seventy or eighty mine workers, peering through the falling snow, calling: “Wullie! Wullie!” It seemed she was searching for a child. She found her husband and had a rapid, frightened conversation with him. Then she screamed “No!” She ran to the pithead and started back down the stairs.

  The husband went to the edge of the shaft then came back and looked around the crowd again, visibly distressed and bewildered. Lizzie said to him: “What’s the matter?”

  He replied in a shaky voice. “We can’t find our laddie, and she thinks he’s still down the pit.”

  “Oh, no!” Lizzie looked over the edge. She could see some kind of torch blazing at the bottom of the shaft. But as she looked it moved and disappeared into the tunnel.

  Mack had done this on three previous occasions, but this time it was much more frightening. Formerly the concentration of firedamp had been much lower, a slow seep rather than a sudden buildup. His father had dealt with major gas leaks, of course—and his father’s body, as he washed himself in front of the fire on Saturday nights, had been covered with the marks of old burns.

  Mack shivered in his blanket sodden with icy water. As he steadily wound in the string, pulling the blazing torch closer to himself and to the gas, he tried to calm his fear by thinking about Annie. They had grown up together and had always been fond of one another. Annie had a wild soul and a muscular body. She had never kissed him in public before, but she had often done it secretly. They had explored one another’s bodies and taught each other how to give pleasure. They had tried all sorts of things together, only stopping short of what Annie called “making bairns.” And they had almost done that.…

  It was no use: he still felt terrified. To calm himself he tried to think in a detached way about how the gas moved and gathered. His trench was at a low point in the tunnel, so the concentration here should be less; but there was no accurate way of estimating it until it ignited. He was afraid of pain, and he knew that burns were torment. He was not really afraid to die. He did not think about religion much but he believed God must be merciful. However, he did not want to die now: he had done nothing, seen nothing, been nowhere. He had spent all his life so far as a slave, If I survive this night, he vowed, I will leave the glen today. I’ll kiss Annie, and say good-bye to Esther, and defy the Jamissons, and walk away from here, so help me God.

  The amount of string that had gathered in his hands told him the torch was now about halfway to him. It could light the firedamp at any moment. However, it might not catch fire at all: sometimes, his father had told him, the gas seemed to vanish, no one knew where.

  He felt a slight resistance to his pull and knew that the torch was rubbing against the wall where the tunnel curved. If he looked out he would be able to see it. Surely the gas must blow now, he thought.

  Then he heard a voice.

  He was so shocked that at first he thought he was having a supernatural experience, an encounter with a ghost or a demon.

  Then he realized that it was neither: he was hearing the voice of a terrified small child, crying and saying: “Where is everyone?”

  Mack’s heart stopped.

  He knew instantly what had happened. As a small boy working in the mine he had often fallen asleep during his fifteen-hour day. This child had done the same, and had slept through the alarm. Then it had woken up, found the pit deserted, and panicked.

  It took Mack only a split second to realize what he had to do.

  He pushed aside the board and sprang out of his trench. The scene was illuminated by the burning torch and he could see the boy coming out of a side tunnel, rubbing his eyes and wailing. It was Wullie, the son of Mack’s cousin Jen. “Uncle Mack!” he said joyfully.

  Mack ran for the boy, unwrapping the sodden blanket from around him as he went. There was no room for two in the shallow trench: they would have to try to reach the shaft before the gas blew. Mack wrapped the boy in the wet blanket, saying: “There’s firedamp, Wullie, we’ve got to get out!” He picked him up, tucked him under one arm, and ran on.

  As he approached the burning torch he willed it not to ignite the gas, and heard himself shouting: “Not yet! Not yet!” Then they were past it.

  The boy was light, but it was hard to run stooping, and the floor underfoot made it more difficult: muddy in places, thick with dust in others, and uneven everywhere, with outcroppings of rock to trip the hasty. Mack charged ahead regardless, stumbling sometimes but managing to keep his feet, listening for the bang that might be the last sound he ever heard.

  As he rounded the curve in the tunnel, the light from the torch dimmed to nothing. He ran on into the darkness, but within seconds he crashed into the wall and fell headlong, dropping Wullie. He cursed and scrambled to his feet.

  The boy began to cry. Mack located him by sound and picked him up again. He was forced to go on more slowly, feeling the tunnel wall with his free hand, cursing the dark. Then, mercifully, a candle flame appeared ahead, at the entrance to the tunnel, and Mack heard Jen’s voice calling: “Wullie! Wullie!”

  “I’ve got him here, Jen!” Mack shouted, breaking into a run. “Get yourself up the stair!”

  She ignored his instruction and came toward him.

  He was only a few yards from the end of the tunnel and safety.

  “Go back!” he yelled, but she kept coming.

  He crashed into her and swept her up in his free arm.

  Then the gas blew.

  For a split second there was an ear-piercing hiss, then there was a huge, deafening thump that shook the earth. A force that felt like a massive fist struck Mack’s back and he was lifted off his feet, losing his grip on Wullie and Jen. He flew through the air. He felt a wave of scorching heat, and he was sure he was going to die; then he splashed headfirst into icy water, and realized he had been thrown into the drainage pool at the bottom of the mine shaft.

  And he was still alive.

  He broke the surface and dashed water from his eyes.

  The wooden decking and staircase were burning in places, and the flames illuminated the scene fitfully. Mack located Jen, splashing about and choking. He grabbed her and heaved her out of the water.

  Choking, she screamed: “Where’s Wullie?”

  He might have been knocked unconscious, Mack thought. He pushed himself from one side of the small pool to the other, bumping into the bucket chain, which had ceased to operate. At last he found a floating object that turned out to be Wullie. He shoved the boy onto the deck beside his mother and clambered out himself.

  Wullie sat up and spewed water. “Thank God,” Jen sobbed. “He’s alive.”

  Mack looked into the tunnel. Stray wisps of gas burned sporadically like fiery spirits. “Away up the stairs with us,” he said. “There might be a secondary blast.” He pulled Jen and Wullie to their feet and pushed them up ahead of him.
Jen lifted Wullie and slung him over her shoulder: his weight was nothing to a woman who could carry a full corf of coal up these stairs twenty times in a fifteen-hour shift.

  Mack hesitated, looking at the small fires burning at the foot of the stairs. If the entire staircase burned, the pit might be out of commission for weeks while it was rebuilt. He took a few extra seconds to splash water from the pool over the flames and put them out. Then he followed Jen up.

  When he reached the top he felt exhausted, bruised and dizzy. He was immediately surrounded by a crowd who shook his hand, slapped his back and congratulated him. The crowd parted for Jay Jamisson and his companion, whom Mack had recognized to be Lizzie Hallim dressed as a man. “Well done, McAsh,” said Jay. “My family appreciates your courage.”

  You smug bastard, Mack thought.

  Lizzie said: “Is there really no other way to deal with firedamp?”

  “No,” said Jay.

  “Of course there is,” Mack gasped.

  “Really?” Lizzie said. “What?”

  Mack caught his breath. “You sink ventilation shafts, which let the gas escape before ever it can accumulate.” He took another deep breath. “The Jamissons have been told time and time again.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the miners standing around.

  Lizzie turned to Jay. “Then why don’t you do it?”

  “You don’t understand business—why should you?” Jay said. “No man of business can pay for an expensive procedure when a cheaper one will achieve the same result. His rivals would undercut his price. It’s political economy.”

  “Give it a fancy name if you like,” Mack panted. “Ordinary folk call it wicked greed.”

  One or two of the miners shouted: “Aye! That’s right!”

  “Now, McAsh,” Jay remonstrated. “Don’t spoil everything by getting above your station again. You’ll get into real trouble.”

  “I’m in no trouble,” Mack said. “Today is my twenty-second birthday.” He had not meant to say this, but now he could not stop himself. “I haven’t worked here the full year-and-a-day, not quite—and I’m not going to.” The crowd was suddenly quiet, and Mack was filled with an exhilarating sense of freedom. “I’m leaving, Mr. Jamisson,” he said. “I quit. Good-bye.” He turned his back on Jay and, in total silence, he walked away.

  9

  BY THE TIME JAY AND LIZZIE GOT BACK TO THE castle, eight or ten servants were about, lighting fires and sweeping floors by candlelight. Lizzie, black with coal dust and almost helpless with fatigue, thanked Jay in a whisper and staggered upstairs. Jay ordered a tub and hot water to be brought to his room then took a bath, scrubbing the coal dust off his skin with a pumice stone.

  In the last forty-eight hours, momentous events had happened in his life: his father had given him a derisory patrimony, his mother had cursed his father, and he had tried to murder his brother—but none of these things occupied his mind. As he lay there he thought about Lizzie. Her impish face appeared before him in the steam from his bath, smiling mischievously, the eyes crinkling in the corners, mocking him, tempting him, daring him. He recalled how she had felt in his arms as he had carried her up the mine shan: she was son and light, and he had pressed her small frame to himself as he climbed the stairs. He wondered if she was thinking about him. She must have called for hot water too: she could hardly go to bed as dirty as she was. He pictured her standing naked in front of her bedroom fire, soaping her body. He wished he could be with her, and take the sponge from her hand, and gently wipe the coal dust from the slopes of her breasts. The thought aroused him, and he sprang out of the bath and rubbed himself dry with a rough towel.

  He did not feel sleepy. He wanted to talk to someone about the night’s adventure, but Lizzie would probably sleep for hours. He thought about his mother. He could trust her. She sometimes pushed him into doing things against his inclination, but she was always on his side.

  He shaved and put on fresh clothes then went along to her room. As he expected she was up, sipping chocolate at her dressing-table while her maid did her hair. She smiled at him. He kissed her and dropped onto a chair. She was pretty, even first thing in the morning, but there was steel in her soul.

  She dismissed her maid. “Why are you up so early?” she asked Jay.

  “I haven’t been to bed. I went down the pit.”

  “With Lizzie Hallim?”

  She was so clever, he thought fondly. She always knew what he was up to. But he did not mind, for she never condemned him. “How did you guess?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. She was itching to go, and she’s the kind of girl who won’t take no for an answer.”

  “We chose a bad day to go down. There was an explosion.”

  “Dear God, are you all right?”

  “Yes—”

  “I’ll send for Dr. Stevenson anyway—”

  “Mother, stop worrying! I was out of the pit by the time it blew. So was Lizzie. I’m just a bit weak in the knees from carrying her all the way up the shaft.”

  Mother calmed down. “What did Lizzie think of it?”

  “She swore she would never allow mining on the Hallim estate.”

  Alicia laughed. “And your father is greedy for her coal. Well, I look forward to witnessing the battle. When Robert is her husband he will have the power to go against her wishes … in theory. We shall see. But how do you think the courtship is progressing?”

  “Flirting isn’t Robert’s strong point, to say the least,” Jay said scornfully.

  “It’s yours, though, isn’t it?” she said indulgently. Jay shrugged.

  “He’s doing his clumsy best.”

  “Perhaps she won’t marry him after all.”

  “I think she will have to.”

  Mother looked shrewdly at him. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Lady Hallim is having trouble renewing her mortgages—Father has made sure of it.”

  “Has he! How sly he is.”

  Jay sighed. “She’s a wonderful girl. She’ll be wasted on Robert.”

  Mother put a hand on his knee. “Jay, my sweet boy, she’s not Robert’s yet.”

  “I suppose she might marry someone else.”

  “She might marry you.”

  “Good God, Mother!” Although he had kissed Lizzie he had not got as far as thinking of marriage.

  “You’re in love with her. I can tell.”

  “Love? Is that what this is?”

  “Of course—your eyes light up at the mention of her name, and when she’s in the room you can’t see anyone else.”

  She had described Jay’s feelings exactly. He had no secrets from his mother. “But marry her?”

  “If you’re in love with her, ask her! You’d be the laird of High Glen.”

  “That would be one in the eye for Robert,” Jay said with a grin. His heart was racing at the thought of having Lizzie as his wife, but he tried to concentrate on the practicalities. “I’d be penniless.”

  “You’re penniless now. But you’d manage the estate better than Lady Hallim—she’s no businesswoman. It’s a big place—High Glen must be ten miles long, and she owns Craigie and Crook Glen too. You’d clear land for grazing, sell more venison, build a watermill.… You could make it produce a decent income, even without mining for coal.”

  “What about the mortgages?”

  “You’re a much more attractive borrower than she is—you’re young and vigorous and you come from a wealthy family. You would find it easy enough to renew the loans. And then, in time …”

  “What?”

  “Well, Lizzie is an impulsive girl. Today she vows she will never allow mining on the Hallim estate. Tomorrow, God knows, she may decide that deer have feelings, and ban hunting. Next week she may have forgotten both edicts. If ever you do allow coal mining, you’ll be able to pay off all your debts.”

  Jay grimaced. “I don’t relish the prospect of going against Lizzie’s wishes on something like that.” He was also thinking that
he wanted to be a Barbadian sugar grower, not a Scottish coal owner. But he wanted Lizzie, too.

  With disconcerting suddenness Mother changed the subject. “What happened yesterday, when you were hunting?”

  Jay was taken by surprise, and he found himself unable to tell a smooth lie. He flushed and stammered, and finally said: “I had another set-to with Father.”

  “I know that much,” she said. “I could tell by your faces when you returned. But it wasn’t just an argument. You did something that shook him. What was it?”

  Jay had never been able to deceive her. “I tried to shoot Robert,” he confessed miserably.

  “Oh, Jay, that’s dreadful,” she said.

  He bowed his head. It was all the worse that he had failed. If he had killed his brother, the guilt would have been appalling, but there would have been a certain savage sense of triumph. This way he had the guilt on its own.

  Mother stood beside his chair and pulled his head to her bosom. “My poor boy,” she said. “There was no need for that. We’ll find another way, don’t worry.” And she rocked back and forth, stroking his hair and saying: “There, there.”

  “How could you do such a thing?” Lady Hallim wailed as she scrubbed Lizzie’s back.

  “I had to see for myself,” Lizzie replied. “Not so hard!”

  “I have to do it hard—the coal dust won’t shift.”

  “Mack McAsh riled me when he said I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Lizzie went on.

  “And why should you?” said her mother. “What business has a young lady to know about coal mining, may I ask?”

  “I hate it when people dismiss me by saying that women don’t understand about politics, or farming, or mining, or trade—it lets them get away with all kinds of nonsense.”

  Lady Hallim groaned. “I hope Robert doesn’t mind your being so masculine.”

  “He’ll have to take me as I am, or not at all.”

  Her mother gave an exasperated sigh. “My dear, this won’t do. You must give him more encouragement. Of course a girl doesn’t want to appear eager, but you go too far the other way. Now promise me you’ll be nice to Robert today.”