A Place Called Freedom (1995) Page 9

  “Mother, what do you think of Jay?”

  Mother smiled. “A charming boy, of course—” She stopped suddenly and stared hard at Lizzie. “Why do you ask?”

  “He kissed me in the coal mine.”

  “No!” Lady Hallim stood upright and hurled the pumice stone across the room. “No, Elizabeth, I will not have this!” Lizzie was taken aback by her mother’s sudden fury. “I have not lived twenty years in penury to see you grow up and marry a handsome pauper!”

  “He’s not a pauper—”

  “Yes he is, you saw that awful scene with his father—his patrimony is a horse—Lizzie, you cannot do this!”

  Mother was possessed by rage. Lizzie had never seen her like this and she could not understand it. “Mother, calm down, won’t you?” she pleaded. She stood up and got out of the tub. “Pass me a towel, please?”

  To her astonishment her mother put her hands to her face and began to cry. Lizzie put her arms around her and said: “Mother, dear, what is it?”

  “Cover yourself, you wicked child,” she said between sobs.

  Lizzie wrapped a blanket around her wet body. “Sit down, Mother.” She guided her to a chair.

  After a while Mother spoke. “Your father was just like Jay, just like him,” she said, and there was a bitter twist to the set of her mouth. “Tall, handsome, charming, and very keen on kissing in dark places—and weak, so weak. I gave in to my lower nature, and married him against my better judgment, even though I knew he was a will-o’-the-wisp. Within three years he had wasted my fortune, and a year after that he fell off his horse when drunk and broke his beautiful head and died.”

  “Oh, Mama.” Lizzie was shocked by the hatred in her mother’s voice. She normally spoke of Father in neutral tones: she had always told Lizzie that he was unlucky in business, that he had died tragically young, and that lawyers had made a mess of the estate’s finances. Lizzie herself could hardly remember him, for she had been three years old when he died.

  “And he scorned me for not giving him a son,” Mother went on. “A son who would have been like him, faithless and feckless, and would have broken some girl’s heart. But I knew how to prevent that.”

  Lizzie was shocked again. Was it true that women could prevent pregnancy? Could it be that her own mother had done such a thing in defiance of her husband’s wishes?

  Mother seized her hand. “Promise me you won’t marry him, Lizzie. Promise me!”

  Lizzie pulled her hand away. She felt disloyal, but she had to tell the truth. “I can’t,” she said. “I love him.”

  When Jay left his mother’s room, his feelings of guilt and shame seemed to dissipate, and suddenly he was hungry. He went down to the dining room. His father and Robert were there, eating thick slices of grilled ham with stewed apples and sugar, talking to Harry Ratchett. Ratchett, as manager of the pits, had come to report the firedamp blast. Father looked sternly at Jay and said: “I hear you went down Heugh pit last night.”

  Jay’s appetite began to fade. “I did,” he said. “There was an explosion.” He poured a glass of ale from a jug.

  “I know all about the explosion,” Father said. “Who was your companion?”

  Jay swallowed some beer. “Lizzie Hallim,” he confessed.

  Robert colored. “Damn you,” he said. “You know Father did not wish her to be taken down the pit.”

  Jay was stung into a defiant response. “Well, Father, how will you punish me? Cut me off without a penny? You’ve already done that.”

  Father wagged a threatening finger. “I warn you not to disregard my orders.”

  “You should be worrying about McAsh, not me,” Jay said, trying to turn his father’s wrath onto another object. “He told everyone he was leaving today.”

  Robert said: “Insubordinate damned tyke.” It was not clear whether he was referring to McAsh or Jay.

  Harry Ratchett coughed. “You might just let McAsh go, Sir George,” he said. “The man’s a good worker, but he’s a troublemaker, and we’d be well rid of him.”

  “I can’t do that,” Father replied. “McAsh has taken a public stand against me. If he gets away with it, every young miner will think he can leave too.”

  Robert put in: “It’s not just us, either. This lawyer, Gordonson, could write to every pit in Scotland. If young miners are allowed to leave at the age of twenty-one, the entire industry could collapse.”

  “Exactly,” Father agreed. “And then what would the British nation do for coal? I tell you, if I ever get Caspar Gordonson in front of me on a treason charge, I’ll hang him quicker than you can say ‘unconstitutional,’ so help me.”

  Robert said: “In fact it’s our patriotic duty to do something about McAsh.”

  They had forgotten about Jay’s offense, to his relief. Keeping the conversation focused on McAsh he asked: “But what can be done?”

  “I could jail him,” said Sir George.

  “No,” Robert said. “When he came out he would still claim to be a free man.”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “He could be flogged,” Robert suggested.

  “That might be the answer,” said Sir George. “I have the right to whip them, in law.”

  Ratchett looked uneasy. “It’s many years since that right was exercised by a coal owner, Sir George. And who would wield the lash?”

  Robert said impatiently: “Well, what do we do with troublemakers?”

  Sir George smiled. “We make them go the round,” he said.

  10

  MACK WOULD HAVE LIKED TO START WALKING TO Edinburgh right away, but he knew that would be foolish. Even though he had not worked a full shift he was exhausted, and the explosion had left him feeling slightly dazed. He needed time to think about what the Jamissons might do and how he could outwit them.

  He went home, took off his wet clothes, lit the fire and got into bed. His immersion in the drainage pool had made him dirtier than usual, for the water was thick with coal dust, but the blankets on his bed were so black that a little more made no difference. Like most of the men, he bathed once a week, on Saturday night.

  The other miners had gone back to work after the explosion. Esther had stayed at the pit, with Annie, to fetch the coal Mack had hewed and bring it up to the surface: she would not let hard work go to waste.

  As he drifted off to sleep he wondered why men got weary more quickly than women. The hewers, all men, worked ten hours, from midnight until ten o’clock in the morning; the bearers, mostly women, worked from two A.M. until five P.M.—fifteen hours. The women’s work was harder, climbing those stairs again and again with huge baskets of coal on their bent backs, yet they kept going long after their men had stumbled home and fallen into bed. Women sometimes became hewers, but it was rare: when wielding the pick or hammer most women could not hit hard enough, and it took them too long to win the coal from the face.

  The men always took a nap when they came home. They would get up after an hour or so. Most would prepare dinner for their wives and children. Some spent the afternoon drinking at Mrs. Wheighel’s: their wives were much pitied, for it was hard for a woman to come home, after fifteen hours of bearing coal, to find no fire, no food and a drunk husband. Life was hard for miners, but it was harder for their wives.

  When Mack woke up he knew it was a momentous day but he could not remember why. Then it came back to him: he was leaving the glen.

  He would not get far if he looked like an escaped coal miner, so the first thing he had to do was get clean. He built up the fire then made several trips to the stream with the water barrel. He heated the water on the fire and brought in the tin tub that hung outside the back door. The little room became steamy. He filled the bath then got in with a piece of soap and a stiff brush and scrubbed himself.

  He began to feel good. This was the last time he would ever wash coal dust off his skin: he would never have to go down a mine again. Slavery was behind him. In front of him he had Edinburgh, London, the world. He would meet
people who had never heard of Heugh pit. His destiny was a blank sheet of paper on which he could write anything he liked.

  While he was in the bath, Annie came in.

  She hesitated just inside the door, looking troubled and uncertain.

  Mack smiled, offered her the brush, and said: “Would you do my back?”

  She came forward and took it from him, but stood looking at him with the same unhappy expression.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She began to scrub his back.

  “They say a miner shouldn’t wash his back,” she said. “It’s supposed to be weakening.”

  “I’m not a miner anymore.”

  She stopped. “Don’t go, Mack,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave me here.”

  He had been afraid of something like this: that kiss on the lips had been a forewarning. He felt guilty. He was fond of his cousin, and he had enjoyed the fun and games they had had together last summer, rolling in the heather on warm Sunday afternoons; but he did not want to spend his life with her, especially if it meant staying in Heugh. Could he explain that without crucifying her? There were tears in her eyes, and he saw how she longed for him to promise he would stay. But he was determined to leave: he wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. “I must go away,” he said. “I’ll miss you, Annie, but I have to go.”

  “You think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you?” she said resentfully. “Your mother had ideas above her station and you’re the same. You’re too good for me, is that it? You’re going to London to marry a fine lady, I suppose!”

  His mother had certainly had ideas above her station, but he was not going to London to marry a fine lady. Was he better than the rest of them? Did he think he was too good for Annie? There was a grain of truth in what she said, and he felt embarrassed. “We’re all too good for slavery,” he said.

  She knelt beside the tub and put her hand on his knee above the water. “Don’t you love me, Mack?”

  To his shame he began to feel aroused. He longed to embrace her and make her feel all right again, but he hardened his heart. “You’re dear to me, Annie, but I never said ‘I love you,’ no more than you did.”

  She slipped her hand under the water and between his legs. She smiled when she felt how stiff he was.

  He said: “Where’s Esther?”

  “Playing with Jen’s new baby. She’ll be away for a while.”

  Annie had asked her to stay away, Mack inferred: otherwise Esther would have hurried home to talk to him about his plans.

  “Stay here and let’s get married,” Annie said, caressing him. The sensation was exquisite. He had taught her how to do it, last summer, and then he had made her show him how she pleasured herself. As he remembered that, he became more inflamed. “We could do anything we liked, all the time,” she said.

  “If I get married I’m stuck here for life,” Mack said, but he felt his resistance weakening.

  Annie stood up and pulled off her dress. She wore nothing else: underwear was reserved for Sundays. Her body was lean and hard, with small, flat breasts and a mass of dense black hair at the groin. Her skin all over was gray with coal dust, like Mack’s. To his astonishment she climbed into the tub with him, kneeling astride his legs. “It’s your turn to wash me,” she said, giving him the soap.

  He rubbed the soap slowly, working up a lather, then he put his hands on her breasts. Her nipples were small and stiff. She moaned deep in her throat, then she grasped his wrists and pushed his hands down, across her hard, flat belly, to her groin. His soapy fingers supped between her thighs and he felt the coarse curls of her thick pubic hair and the firm, soft flesh beneath it.

  “Say you’ll stay,” she pleaded. “Let’s do it. I want to feel you inside me.”

  He knew that if he gave in his fate was sealed. There was something dreamily unreal about the scene. “No,” he said, but his voice was a whisper.

  She came closer, pulling his face to her breasts, then lowered herself until she was poised over him, her sexual lips just touching the swollen end of his cock where it stuck up out of the water. “Say yes,” she said.

  He groaned and gave up the struggle. “Yes,” he said. “Please. Quickly.”

  There was a terrific crash and the door flew open.

  Annie screamed.

  Four men burst in, filling the little room: Robert Jamisson, Harry Ratchett and two of the Jamissons’ keepers. Robert wore a sword and a pair of pistols, and one of the keepers carried a musket.

  Annie got off Mack and stepped out of the bath. Dazed and frightened, Mack stood up shakily.

  The keeper with the musket looked at Annie. “Cozy cousins,” he said with a leer. Mack knew the man: his name was McAlistair. He recognized the other one, a big bully called Tanner.

  Robert laughed harshly. “Is that what she is—his cousin? I suppose incest is nothing to coal miners.”

  Mack’s fear and bewilderment gave way to fury at this invasion of his home. He suppressed his anger and struggled to remain controlled. He was in grave danger, and there was a chance Annie would suffer too. He had to keep his wits about him, not give in to outrage. He looked at Robert. “I’m a free man and I’ve broken no laws,” he said. “What are you doing in my house?”

  McAlistair was still staring at Annie’s body, damp and steaming. “What a pretty sight,” he said thickly.

  Mack turned to him. In a low, even voice he said: “If you touch her I’ll tear the head off your neck with my hands.”

  McAlistair looked at Mack’s bare shoulders and realized he could do what he threatened. He paled and took a step back, even though he held a gun.

  But Tanner was bigger and more reckless, and he reached out and grasped Annie’s wet breast

  Mack acted without forethought. A second later he was out of the tub and grasping Tanner by the wrist. Before anyone else could move he had thrust Tanner’s hand into the fire.

  Tanner screamed and writhed, but he could not escape from Mack’s grip. “Let me go!” he screeched. “Please, please!”

  Mack held the man’s hand in the burning coals and yelled: “Run, Annie!”

  Annie snatched up her dress and flew out the back door.

  The butt of a musket cracked into the back of Mack’s head.

  The blow enraged him, and with Annie gone he became heedless. He released Tanner, then grabbed McAlistair by the coat and butted him in the face, smashing the man’s nose. Blood spurted and McAlistair roared with pain. Mack swung around and kicked Harry Ratchett in the groin with a bare foot as hard as a stone. Ratchett doubled up, groaning.

  Every fight Mack had ever fought had taken place down the pit, so he was accustomed to combat in a confined space; but four opponents were too many. McAlistair hit him again with the butt of the musket, and for a moment Mack swayed, stunned. Then Ratchett grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms, and before he could release himself the point of Robert Jamisson’s sword was at his throat.

  After a moment Robert said: “Tie him up.”

  They threw him across the back of a horse and covered his nakedness with a blanket, then they took him to Castle Jamisson and put him in the larder, still naked and tied hand and foot. He lay on the stone floor, shivering, surrounded by the dripping carcasses of deer, cattle and pigs. He tried to warm himself by moving as much as he could, but with his hands and feet tied he could not generate much heat. Eventually he managed to sit up with his back against the furry hide of a dead stag. For a while he sang to keep up his spirits—first the ballads they crooned at Mrs. Wheighel’s on Saturday nights, then a few hymns, then some old Jacobite rebel ditties; but when he ran out of songs he felt worse than before.

  His head hurt from the musket blows, but what pained him most was how easily the Jamissons had taken him. What a fool he was to have delayed his departure. He had given them time to take action. While they were planning his downfall he had been feeling his cousin’s breasts.

  It did not help to speculate about what they had
in store for him. If he did not freeze to death here in the larder they would probably send him to Edinburgh and have him tried for assaulting the gamekeepers. Like most crimes, that was a hanging matter.

  The light coming through the cracks around the door gradually faded as night fell. They came for him just as the stable yard clock struck eleven. There were six men this time, and he did not attempt to fight them.

  Davy Taggart, the blacksmith who made the miners’ tools, fitted an iron collar like Jimmy Lee’s around Mack’s neck. It was the ultimate humiliation: a sign for all the world to see, saying he was another man’s property. He was less than a man, subhuman; he was livestock.

  They untied his bonds and threw some clothes at him: a pair of breeches, a threadbare flannel shirt and a ripped waistcoat. He put them on hastily and still felt cold. The keepers tied his hands again and put him on a pony.

  They rode to the pit.

  The Wednesday shift would begin in a few minutes’ time, at midnight. The ostler was putting a fresh horse in harness to drive the bucket chain. Mack realized they were going to make him go the round.

  He groaned aloud. It was a crushing, humiliating torture. He would have given his life for a bowl of hot porridge and a few minutes in front of a blazing fire. Instead he was doomed to spend the night in the open air. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg for mercy; but the thought of how that would please the Jamissons stiffened his pride, and instead he roared: “You’ve no right to do this! No right!” The keepers laughed at him.

  They stood him in the muddy circular track around which the pithead horses trotted day and night. He squared his shoulders and held his head high, although he felt like bursting into tears. They tied him to the harness, facing the horse, so that he could not get out of its way. Then the ostler whipped the horse into a trot.

  Mack began to run backward.

  He stumbled almost immediately, and the horse drew up. The ostler whipped it again, and Mack scrambled to his feet just in time. He began to get the knack of running backward. Then he became overconfident and slipped on the icy mud. This time the horse charged on. Mack slid to one side, writhing and twisting to get away from the hooves, and was dragged alongside the horse for a second or two, then he lost control and slipped under the horse’s feet. The horse trod on his stomach and kicked his thigh, then stopped.