A Place Called Freedom (17 page)

Mack was disgusted by Delaney’s cynicism, but he felt the man was telling the truth. He could not think of anything else to say or do. Feeling defeated, he went to the door, and Dermot and Charlie followed.

“Take my advice, McAsh,” Delaney said. “Be like me. Get yourself a little tavern and sell liquor to coal heavers. Stop trying to help them and start helping yourself. You could do well. You’ve got it in you, I can tell.”

“Be like you?” Mack said. “You’ve made yourself rich by cheating your fellow men. By Christ, I wouldn’t be like you for a kingdom.”

As he went out he was gratified to see Delaney’s face darken in anger at last.

But his satisfaction lasted no longer than it took to close the door. He had won an argument and lost everything else. If only he had swallowed his pride and accepted the undertakers’ system, he would at least have work to do tomorrow morning. Now he had nothing—and he had put fifteen other men, and their families, in the same hopeless position. The prospect of bringing Esther to London was farther away than ever. He had handled everything wrong. He was a damn fool.

The three men sat in one of the bars and ordered beer and bread for their breakfast. Mack reflected that he had been arrogant to look down on the coal heavers for accepting their lot dumbly. In his mind he had called them oxen, but he was the ox.

He thought of Caspar Gordonson, the radical lawyer who had started all this by telling Mack his legal rights. If I could get hold of Gordonson, Mack thought, I’d let him know what legal rights are worth.

The law was useful only to those who had the power to enforce it, it seemed. Coal miners and coal heavers had no advocate at court. They were fools to talk of their rights. The smart people ignored right and wrong and took care of themselves, like Cora and Peg and Buck Delaney.

He picked up his tankard then froze with it halfway to his mouth. Caspar Gordonson lived in London, of course. Mack
could
get hold of him. He could let him know what legal rights were worth—but perhaps he could do better than that. Perhaps Gordonson would be the coal heavers’ advocate. He was a lawyer, and he wrote constantly about English liberty: he ought to help.

It was worth a try.

The fatal letter Mack received from Caspar Gordonson had come from an address in Fleet Street. The Fleet was a filthy stream running into the Thames at the foot of the hill upon which St. Paul’s Cathedral stood. Gordonson lived in a three-story brick row house next to a large tavern.

“He must be a bachelor,” said Dermot

“How do you know?” Charlie Smith asked.

“Dirty windows, doorstep not polished—there’s no lady in this house.”

A manservant let them in, showing no surprise when they asked for Mr. Gordonson. As they entered, two well-dressed men were leaving, continuing as they went a heated discussion that involved William Pitt, the Lord Privy Seal, and Viscount Weymouth, a secretary of State. They did not pause in their argument but one nodded to Mack with absentminded politeness, which surprised him greatìy, since gentlemen normally ignored low-class people.

Mack had imagined a lawyer’s house to be a place of dusty documents and whispered secrets, in which the loudest noise was the slow scratching of pens. Gordonson’s home was more like a printer’s shop. Pamphlets and journals in string-tied bundles were stacked in the hall, the air smelled of cut paper and printing ink, and the sound of machinery from below stairs suggested that a press was being operated in the basement.

The servant stepped into a room off the hall. Mack wondered if he was wasting his time. People who wrote clever articles in journals probably did not dirty their hands by getting involved with workingmen. Gordonson’s interest in liberty might be strictly theoretical. But Mack had to try everything. He had led his coal heaving gang into rebellion, and now they were all without work: he had to do something.

A loud and shrill voice came from within. “McAsh? Never heard of him! Who is he? You don’t know? Then ask! Never mind—”

A moment later a balding man with no wig appeared in the doorway and peered at the three coal heavers through spectacles. “I don’t think I know any of you,” he said. “What do you want with me?”

It was a discouraging introduction, but Mack was not easily disheartened, and he said spiritedly: “You gave me some very bad advice recently but, despite that, I’ve come back for more.”

There was a pause, and Mack thought he had given offense; then Gordonson laughed heartily. In a friendly voice he said: “Who are you, anyway?”

“Malachi McAsh, known as Mack. I was a coal miner at Heugh, near Edinburgh, until you wrote and told me I was a free man.”

Understanding lit up Gordonson’s expression. “You’re the liberty-loving miner! Shake hands, man.”

Mack introduced Dermot and Charlie.

“Come in, all of you. Have a glass of wine?”

They followed him into an untidy room furnished with a writing table and walls of bookcases. More publications were piled on the floor, and printers’ proofs were scattered across the table. A fat old dog lay on a stained rug in front of the fire. There was a ripe smell that must have come from the rug or the dog, or both. Mack lifted an open law book from a chair and sat down. “I won’t take any wine, thank you,” he said. He wanted his wits about him.

“A cup of coffee, perhaps? Wine sends you to sleep but coffee wakes you up.” Without waiting for a reply he said to the servant: “Coffee for everyone.” He turned back to Mack. “Now, McAsh, why was my advice to you so wrong?”

Mack told him the story of how he had left Heugh. Dermot and Charlie listened intently: they had never heard this. Gordonson lit a pipe and blew clouds of tobacco smoke, shaking his head in disgust from time to time. The coffee came as Mack was finishing.

“I know the Jamissons of old—they’re greedy, heartless, brutal people,” Gordonson said with feeling. “What did you do when you got to London?”

“I became a coal heaver.” Mack related what had happened in the Sun tavern last night.

Gordonson said: “The liquor payments to coal heavers are a long-standing scandal.”

Mack nodded. “I’ve been told I’m not the first to protest.”

“Indeed not. Parliament actually passed a law against the practice ten years ago.”

Mack was astonished. “Then how does it continue?”

“The law has never been enforced.”

“Why not?”

“The government is afraid of disrupting the supply of coal. London runs on coal—nothing happens here without it: no bread is made, no beer brewed, no glass blown, no iron smelted, no horses shod, no nails manufactured—”

“I understand,” Mack interrupted impatiently. “I ought not to be surprised that the law does nothing for men such as us.”

“Now, you’re wrong about that,” Gordonson said in a pedantic tone. “The law makes no decisions. It has no will of its own. It’s like a weapon, or a tool: it works for those who pick it up and use it.”

“The rich.”

“Usually,” Gordonson conceded. “But it might work for you.”

“How?” Mack said eagerly.

“Suppose you devised an alternative ganging system for unloading coal ships.”

This was what Mack had been hoping for. “It wouldn’t be difficult,” he said. “The men could choose one of their number to be undertaker and deal with the captains. The money would be shared out as soon as it’s received.”

“I presume the coal heavers would prefer to work under the new system, and be free to spend their wages as they pleased.”

“Yes,” Mack said, suppressing his mounting excitement. “They could pay for their beer as they drink it, the way anyone does.” But would Gordonson weigh in on the side of the coal heavers? If that happened everything could change.

Charlie Smith said lugubriously: “It’s been tried before. It doesn’t work.”

Charlie had been a coal heaver for many years, Mack recalled. He asked: “Why doesn’t it work?”

“What happens is, the undertakers bribe the ships’ captains not to use the new gangs. Then there’s trouble and fighting between the gangs. And it’s the new gangs that get punished for the fights, because the magistrates are undertakers themselves, or friends of undertakers … and in the end all the coal heavers go back to the old ways.”

“Damn fools,” Mack said.

Charlie looked offended. “I suppose if they were clever they wouldn’t be coal heavers.”

Mack realized he had been supercilious, but it angered him when men were their own worst enemies. “They only need a little determination and solidarity,” he said.

Gordonson put in: “There’s more to it than that. It’s a question of politics. I remember the last coal heavers’ dispute. They were defeated because they had no champion. The undertakers were against them and no one was for them.”

“Why should it be different this time?” said Mack.

“Because of John Wilkes.”

Wilkes was the defender of liberty, but he was in exile. “He can’t do much for us in Paris.”

“He’s not in Paris. He’s back.”

That was a surprise. “What’s he going to do?”

“Stand for Parliament.”

Mack could imagine how that would stir up trouble in London’s political circles. “But I still don’t see how it helps us.”

“Mikes will take the coal heavers’ part, and the government will side with the undertakers. Such a dispute, with workingmen plainly in the right, and having the law on their side too, would do Wilkes nothing but good.”

“How do you know what Wilkes will do?”

Gordonson smiled. “I’m his electoral agent.”

Gordonson was more powerful than Mack had realized. This was a piece of luck.

Charlie Smith, still skeptical, said: “So you’re planning to use the coal heavers to advance your own political purposes.”

“Fair point,” Gordonson said mildly. He put down his pipe. “But why do I support Wilkes? Let me explain. You came to me today complaining of injustice. This kind of thing happens all too often: ordinary men and women cruelly abused for the benefit of some greedy brute, a George Jamisson or a Sidney Lennox. It harms trade, because the bad enterprises undermine the good. And even if it were good for trade it would be wicked. I love my country and I hate the brutes who would destroy its people and ruin its prosperity. So I spend my life fighting for justice.” He smiled and put his pipe back in his mouth. “I hope that doesn’t sound too pompous.”

“Not at all,” said Mack. “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

16

J
AY
J
AMISSON’S WEDDING DAY WAS COLD AND DAMP
. From his bedroom in Grosvenor Square he could see Hyde Park, where his regiment was bivouacked. A low mist covered the ground, and the soldiers’ tents looked like ships’ sails on a swirling gray sea. Dull fires smoked here and there, adding to the fug. The men would be miserable, but soldiers were always miserable.

He turned from the window. Chip Marlborough, his brideman, was holding Jay’s new coat. Jay shrugged into it with a grunt of thanks. Chip was a captain in the Third Foot Guards, like Jay. His father was Lord Arebury, who had business dealings with Jay’s father. Jay was flattered that such an aristocratic scion had agreed to stand beside him on his wedding day.

“Have you seen to the horses?” Jay asked anxiously.

“Of course,” said Chip.

Although the Third Foot was an infantry regiment, officers always went mounted, and Jay’s responsibility was to supervise the men who looked after the horses. He was good with horses: he understood them instinctively. He had two days’ leave for his wedding but he still worried whether the beasts were being looked after properly.

His leave was so short because the regiment was on active service. There was no war: the last war the British army had fought was the Seven Years’ War, against the French in America, and that had ended while Jay and Chip were schoolboys. But the people of London were so restless and turbulent that the troops were standing by to suppress riots. Every few days some group of angry craftsmen went on strike or marched on Parliament or ran through the streets breaking windows. Only this week silk weavers, outraged by a reduction in their rate of pay, had destroyed three of the new engine looms in Spitalfields.

“I hope the regiment isn’t called out while I’m on leave,” Jay said. “It would be just my luck to miss the action.”

“Stop worrying!” Chip poured brandy from a decanter into two glasses. He was a great brandy drinker. “To love!” he said.

“To love,” Jay repeated.

He did not know much about love, he reflected. He had lost his virginity five years ago with Arabella, one of his father’s housemaids. He thought at the time that he was seducing her but, looking back, he could see that it had been the other way around. After he had shared her bed three times she said she was pregnant. He had paid her thirty pounds—which he had borrowed from a moneylender—to disappear. He now suspected she had never been pregnant and the whole thing was a deliberate swindle.

Since then he had flirted with dozens of girls, kissed many of them, and bedded a few. He found it easy to charm a girl: it was mainly a matter of pretending to be interested in everything she said, although good looks and good manners helped. He bowled them over without much effort. But now for the first time he had suffered the same treatment. When he was with Lizzie he always felt slightly breathless, and he knew that he stared at her as if she were the only person in the room, the way a girl stared at him when he was being fascinating. Was that love? He thought it must be.

His father had mellowed toward the marriage because of the possibility of getting at Lizzie’s coal. That was why he was having Lizzie and her mother staying in the guest house, and paying the rent on the Chapel Street house where Jay and Lizzie would live after the wedding. They had not made any firm promises to Father, but neither had they told him that Lizzie was dead set against mining in High Glen. Jay just hoped it would work out all right in the end.

The door opened and a footman said: “Will you see a Mr. Lennox, sir?”

Jay’s heart sank. He owed Sidney Lennox money: gambling losses. He would have sent the man away—he was only a tavern keeper—but then Lennox might turn nasty about the debt. “You’d better show him in,” Jay said. “I’m sorry about this,” he said to Chip.

“I know Lennox,” Chip said. “I’ve lost money to him myself.” Lennox walked in, and Jay noticed the distinctive sweet-sour smell of the man, like something fermenting. Chip greeted him. “How are you, you damned rogue?”

Lennox gave him a cool look. “You don’t call me a damned rogue when you win, I notice.”

Jay regarded him nervously. Lennox wore a yellow suit and silk stockings with buckled shoes, but he looked like a jackal dressed as a man: there was an air of menace about him that fancy clothes could not conceal. However, Jay could not quite bring himself to break with Lennox. He was a very useful acquaintance: he always knew where there was a cockfìght, a gladiatorial combat or a horse race, and if all else failed he would start a card school or a dice game himself.

He was also willing to give credit to young officers who ran out of cash but wanted to continue gambling; and that was the trouble. Jay owed Lennox a hundred and fifty pounds. It would be embarrassing if Lennox insisted on collecting the debt now.

“You know I’m getting married today, Lennox,” Jay said.

“Yes, I know that,” Lennox said. “I came to drink your health.”

“By all means, by all means. Chip—a tot for our friend.”

Chip poured three generous measures of brandy.

Lennox said: “To you and your bride.”

“Thank you,” said Jay, and the three men drank.

Lennox addressed Chip. “There’ll be a big faro game tomorrow night, at Lord Archer’s coffeehouse, Captain Marlborough.”

“It sounds good to me,” said Chip.

“I’ll hope to see you there. No doubt you’ll be too busy, Captain Jamisson.”

“I expect so,” Jay replied. Anyway, I can’t afford it, he thought to himself.

Lennox put down his glass. “I wish you a good day and hope the fog lifts,” he said, and he went out.

Jay concealed his relief. Nothing had been said about the money. Lennox knew that Jay’s father had paid the last debt, and perhaps he felt confident that Sir George would do the same again. Jay wondered why Lennox had come: surely not just to cadge a free glass of brandy? He had an unpleasant feeling that Lennox had been making some kind of point. There was an unspoken threat in the air. But what could a tavern keeper do to the son of a wealthy merchant, in the end?

From the street Jay heard the sound of carriages drawing up in front of the house. He put Lennox out of his mind. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said.

The drawing room was a grand space with expensive furniture made by Thomas Chippendale, it smelled of wax polish. Jay’s mother, father and brother were there, all dressed for church. Alicia kissed Jay. Sir George and Robert greeted him awkwardly: they had never been an affectionate family, and the row over the twenty-first birthday gift was still fresh in their memories.

A footman was pouring coffee. Jay and Chip each took a cup. Before they could sip it the door flew open and Lizzie came in like a hurricane. “How dare you?” she stormed. “How dare you?”

Jay’s heart missed a beat. What was the matter now? Lizzie was pink with indignation, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving. She was wearing her bridal outfit, a simple white dress with a white cap, but she looked ravishing. “What have I done?” Jay asked plaintively.

“The wedding is off!” she replied.

“No!” Jay cried. Surely she was not to be snatched from him at the last moment? The thought was unbearable.

Lady Hallim hurried in after her, looking distraught. “Lizzie, please stop this,” she said.

Jay’s mother took charge. “Lizzie dear, what on earth is the trouble? Please tell us what has made you so distressed.”

“This!” she said, and she fluttered a sheaf of papers.

Lady Hallim was wringing her hands. “It’s a letter from my head keeper,” she said.

Lizzie said: “It says that surveyors employed by the Jamissons have been sinking boreholes on the Hallim estate.”

“Boreholes?” Jay said, mystified. He looked at Robert and saw a furtive expression on his face.

Lizzie said impatiently: “They’re looking for coal, of course.”

“Oh, no!” Jay protested. He understood what had happened. His impatient father had jumped the gun. He was so eager to get at Lizzie’s coal that he had not been able to wait until the wedding.

But Father’s impatience might have lost Jay his bride. That thought made Jay angry enough to shout at his father. “You damn fool!” he said recklessly. “Look what you’ve done!”

It was a shocking thing for a son to say, and Sir George was not used to opposition from anyone. He went red in the face and his eyes bulged. “Call off the damned wedding, then!” he roared. “What do I care?”

Alicia intervened. “Calm down, Jay, and you too, Lizzie,” she said; and she meant Sir George as well, though she tactfully did not say so. “There has obviously been a mistake. No doubt Sir George’s surveyors misunderstood some instructions. Lady Hallim, please take Lizzie back to the guest house and allow us to sort this out. I feel sure we do not need to do anything so drastic as to call off the wedding.”

Chip Marlborough coughed. Jay had forgotten he was there. “If you’ll excuse me …,” Chip said. He went to the door.

“Don’t leave the house,” Jay pleaded. “Wait upstairs.”

“Certainly,” Chip said, although his face showed that he would rather be anywhere else in the world.

Alicia gently ushered Lizzie and Lady Hallim toward the door behind Chip. “Please, just give me a few minutes and I will come and see you and everything will be all right.”

As Lizzie went out she was looking more doubtful than angry, and Jay hoped she realized he had not known about the boreholes. His mother closed the door and turned around. Jay prayed she could do something to save the wedding. Did she have a plan? She was so clever. It was his only hope.

She did not remonstrate with his father. Instead she said: “If there’s no wedding you won’t get your coal.”

“High Glen is bankrupt!” Sir George replied.

“But Lady Hallim could renew her mortgages with another lender.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“Someone will tell her.”

There was a pause while that threat sank in. Jay was afraid his father would explode. But Mother was a good judge of how far he could be pushed, and in the end he said resignedly: “What do you want, Alicia?”

Jay breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps his wedding might be saved after all.

Mother said: “First of all, Jay must speak to Lizzie and convince her that he did not know about the surveyors.”

“It’s true,” Jay interjected.

“Shut up and listen,” his father said brutally.

Mother went on: “If he can do that, they can get married as planned.”

“Then what?”

“Then be patient. In time, Jay and I can talk Lizzie around. She’s against coal mining now, but she will change her mind, or at least become less passionate about it—especially when she has a home and a baby and begins to understand the importance of money.”

Sir George shook his head. “It’s not good enough, Alicia—I can’t wait.”

“Whyever not?”

He paused and looked at Robert, who shrugged. “I suppose I might as well tell you,” Father said. “I’ve got debts of my own. You know we have always run on borrowed money—most of it from Lord Arebury. In the past we’ve made profits for ourselves and for him. But our trade with America has fallen very low since the trouble started in the colonies. And it’s almost impossible to get paid for what little business we do—our biggest debtor has gone bust, leaving me with a tobacco plantation in Virginia that I can’t sell.”

Jay was stunned. It had never occurred to him that the family enterprises were risky and that the wealth he had always known might not last forever. He began to see why his father had been so enraged at having to pay his gambling debts.

Father went on: “The coal has been keeping us going, but it’s not enough. Lord Arebury wants his money. So I have to have the Hallim estate. Otherwise I could lose my entire business.”

There was a silence. Both Jay and his mother were too shocked to speak.

Eventually Alicia said: “Then there is only one solution. High Glen will have to be mined without Lizzie’s knowledge.”

Jay frowned anxiously. That proposal frightened him. But he decided not to say anything just yet.

“How could it be done?” said Sir George.

“Send her and Jay to another country.”

Jay was startled. What a clever idea! “But Lady Hallim would know,” he said. “And she’ll be sure to tell Lizzie.”

Alicia shook her head. “No, she won’t. She’ll do anything to make this marriage happen. She’ll keep quiet if we tell her to.”

Jay said: “But where would we go? What country?”

“Barbados,” said his mother.

“No!” Robert interjected. “Jay can’t have the sugar plantation.”

Alicia said quietly: “I think your father will give it up if the survival of the entire family enterprise depends upon it.”

Robert’s face wore a triumphant look. “Father can’t, even if he wants to. The plantation already belongs to me.”

Alicia looked inquiringly at Sir George. “Is that true? Is it his?”

Sir George nodded. “I made it over to him.”

“When?”

“Three years ago.”

That was another shock. Jay had no idea. He felt wounded. “That’s why you wouldn’t give it to me for my birthday,” he said sadly. “You had already given it to Robert.”

Alicia said: “But, Robert, surely you’d give it back to save the entire business?”

“No!” Robert said hotly. “This is only the beginning—you’ll start by stealing the plantation, and in the end you’ll get everything! I know you’ve always wanted to take the business from me and give it to that little bastard.”

“All I want for Jay is a fair share,” she replied.

Sir George said: “Robert, if you don’t do this it could mean bankruptcy for all of us.”

“Not for me,” he said triumphantly. “I’ll still have a plantation.”

“But you could have so much more,” said Sir George.

Robert looked sly. “All right, I’ll do it—on one condition: that you sign over the rest of the business to me, I mean everything. And you retire.”

“No!” Sir George shouted. “I won’t retire—I’m not yet fifty years old!”

They glared at one another, Robert and Sir George, and Jay thought how similar they were. Neither would give in over this, he knew, and his heart sank.