A Place Called Freedom (4 page)

He turned away. Esther stood up with him. As they started down the aisle, Jimmy Lee got up and followed. One or two others stood, then Ma Lee got to her feet, and suddenly the exodus became general. There was a loud scraping of boots and rustling of dresses as the miners left their places, bringing their families with them. As Mack reached the door he knew that every miner in the place was following him out of the church, and he was seized by a feeling of fellowship and triumph that brought tears to his eyes.

They gathered around him in the churchyard. The wind had dropped but it was snowing, big flakes drifting lazily down onto the gravestones. “That was wrong, to tear up the letter,” Jimmy said angrily.

Several others agreed. “We’ll write again,” said one.

Mack said: “It may not be so easy to get the letter posted a second time.” His mind was not really on these details. He was breathing hard and he felt exhausted and exhilarated, as if he had run up the side of High Glen.

“The law is the law!” said another miner.

“Aye, but the laird is the laird,” said a more cautious one.

As Mack calmed down he began to wonder realistically what he had achieved. He had stirred everyone up, of course, but that on its own would not change anything. The Jamissons had flatly refused to acknowledge the law. If they stuck to their guns what could the miners do? Was there ever any point in fighting for justice? Would it not be better to touch his forelock to the laird and hope one day to get Harry Ratchett’s job as viewer?

A small figure in black fur shot out of the church porch like a deerhound unleashed. It was Lizzie Hallim. She made straight for Mack. The miners stepped out of her way with alacrity.

Mack stared at her. She had looked pretty enough in repose, but now that her face was alive with indignation she was ravishing. Her black eyes flashing fire, she said: “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Malachi McAsh—”

“I know your name,” she said. “How dare you talk to the laird and his son that way?”

“How dare they enslave us when the law says they may not?”

The miners murmured their agreement.

Lizzie looked around at them. Snowflakes clung to the fur of her coat. One landed on her nose and she brushed it off with an impatient gesture. “You’re fortunate to have paid work,” she said. “You should all be grateful to Sir George for developing his mines and providing your families with the means to live.”

Mack said: “If we’re so fortunate, why do they need laws forbidding us to leave the village and seek other work?”

“Because you’re too foolish to know when you’re well off!”

Mack realized he was enjoying this contest, and not just because it involved looking at a beautiful highborn woman. As an opponent she was more subtle than either Sir George or Robert.

He lowered his voice and adopted an inquiring tone. “Miss Hallim, have you ever been down a coal mine?”

Ma Lee cackled with laughter at the thought.

Lizzie said: “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If one day you do, I guarantee that you’ll never again call us lucky.”

“I’ve heard enough of your insolence,” she said. “You should be flogged.”

“I probably will be,” he said, but he did not believe it: no miner had been flogged here in his lifetime, though his father had seen it.

Her chest was heaving. He had to make an effort not to look at her bosom. She said: “You’ve an answer for everything, you always had.”

“Aye, but you’ve never listened to any of them.”

He felt an elbow dig painfully into his side: it was Esther, telling him to watch his step, reminding him that it never paid to outsmart the gentry. She said: “We’ll think about what you’ve told us, Miss Hallim, and thank you for your advice.”

Lizzie nodded condescendingly. “You’re Esther, aren’t you?”

“Aye, miss.”

She turned to Mack. “You should listen to your sister, she’s got more sense than you.”

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said to me today.”

Esther hissed: “Mack—
shut your gob.”

Lizzie grinned, and suddenly all her arrogance vanished. The smile lit up her face and she seemed another person, friendly and gay. “I haven’t heard that phrase for a long time,” she said, laughing. Mack could not help laughing with her.

She turned away, still chuckling.

Mack watched her walk back to the church porch and join the Jamissons, who were just emerging. “My God,” he said, shaking his head. “What a woman.”

4

J
AY WAS ANGERED BY THE ROW IN THE CHURCH
. I
T INFURIATED
him to see people getting above their station. It was God’s will and the law of the land that Malachi McAsh should spend his life hewing coal underground and Jay Jamisson should live a higher existence. To complain about the natural order was wicked. And McAsh had an infuriating way of speaking as if he were the equal of anyone, no matter how highborn.

In the colonies, now, a slave was a slave, and no nonsense about working a year and a day or being paid wages. That was the way to do things, in Jay’s opinion. People would not work unless compelled to, and compulsion might as well be merciless—it was more efficient.

As he left the church some of the crofters offered congratulations on his twenty-first birthday, but not one of the miners spoke to him. They stood in a crowd to one side of the graveyard, arguing among themselves in low, angry voices. Jay was outraged by the blight they had cast on his celebratory day.

He hurried through the snow to where a groom held the horses. Robert was already there, but Lizzie was not. Jay looked around for her. He had been looking forward to riding home with Lizzie. “Where’s Miss Elizabeth?” he said to the groom.

“Over by the porch, Mr. Jay.”

Jay saw her talking animatedly to the pastor.

Robert tapped Jay on the chest with an aggressive finger. “Listen here, Jay—you leave Elizabeth Hallim alone, do you understand?”

Robert’s face was set in belligerent lines. It was dangerous to cross him in this mood. But anger and disappointment gave Jay courage. “What the devil are you talking about?” he said.

“You’re not going to marry her, I am.”

“I don’t want to marry her.”

“Then don’t flirt with her.”

Jay knew that Lizzie had found him attractive, and he had enjoyed bantering with her, but he had no thought of capturing her heart. When he was fourteen and she thirteen he had thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and it had broken his heart that she was not interested in him (or, indeed, any other boy)—but that was a long time ago. Father’s plan was for Robert to marry Lizzie, and neither Jay nor anyone else in the family would oppose the wishes of Sir George. So Jay was surprised Robert had been upset enough to complain. It showed he was insecure—and Robert, like his father, was not often unsure of himself.

Jay enjoyed the rare pleasure of seeing his brother worried. “What are you afraid of?” he said.

“You know damn well what I mean. You’ve been stealing my things since we were boys—my toys, my clothes, everything.”

An old familiar resentment goaded Jay into saying: “Because you always got whatever you wanted, and I got nothing.”

“Nonsense.”

“Anyway, Miss Hallim is a guest at our house,” Jay said in a more reasonable tone. “I can’t ignore her, can I?”

Robert’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “Do you want me to speak to Father about it?”

Those were the magic words that had ended so many childhood disputes. Both brothers knew that their father would always rule in favor of Robert. A long-familiar bitterness rose in Jay’s throat. “All right, Robert,” he conceded. “I’ll try not to interfere with your courting.”

He swung onto his horse and trotted away, leaving Robert to escort Lizzie to the castle.

Castle Jamisson was a dark gray stone fortress with turrets and a battlemented roofline, and it had the tall, overbearing look of so many Scottish country houses. It had been built seventy years ago, after the first coal pit in the glen began to bring wealth to the laird.

Sir George inherited the estate through a cousin of his first wife’s. Throughout Jay’s childhood his father had been obsessed with coal. He had spent all his time and money opening new pits, and no improvements had been made to the castle.

Although it was Jay’s childhood home he did not like the place. The huge, drafty rooms on the ground floor—hall, dining room, drawing room, kitchen and servants’ hall—were arranged around a central courtyard with a fountain that was frozen from October to May. The place was impossible to heat. Fires in every bedroom, burning the plentiful coal from the Jamisson pits, made little impression on the chill air of the big flagstoned chambers, and the corridors were so cold that you had to put on a cloak to go from one room to another.

Ten years ago the family had moved to London, leaving a skeleton staff to maintain the house and protect the game. For a while they would come back every year, bringing guests and servants with them, renting horses and a carriage from Edinburgh, hiring crofters’ wives to mop the stone floors and keep the fires alight and empty the chamberpots. But Father became more and more reluctant to leave his business, and the visits petered out. This year’s revival of the old custom did not please Jay. However, the grown-up Lizzie Hallim was a pleasant surprise, and not merely because she gave him a means of tormenting his favored older brother.

He rode around to the stables and dismounted. He patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s no steeplechaser, but he’s a well-behaved mount,” he said to the groom, handing over the reins. “I’d be glad to have him in my regiment.”

The groom looked pleased. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

Jay went into the great hall. It was a big, gloomy chamber with dim shadowy corners into which the candlelight hardly penetrated. A sullen deerhound lay on an old fur rug in front of the coal fire. Jay gave it a nudge with the toe of his boot and made it get out of the way so that he could warm his hands.

Over the fireplace was the portrait of his father’s first wife, Robert’s mother, Olive. Jay hated that painting. There she was, solemn and saintly, looking down her long nose at all who came after her. When she caught a fever and died suddenly at the age of twenty-nine his father had remarried, but he never forgot his first love. He treated Jay’s mother, Alicia, like a mistress, a plaything with no status and no rights; and he made Jay feel almost like an illegitimate son. Robert was the firstborn, the heir, the special one. Jay sometimes wanted to ask whether it had been an immaculate conception and a virgin birth.

He turned his back on the picture. A footman brought him a goblet of hot mulled wine and he sipped it gratefully. Perhaps it would settle the tension in his stomach. Today Father would announce what Jay’s portion would be.

He knew he was not going to get half, or even a tenth, of his father’s fortune. Robert would inherit this estate, with its rich mines, and the fleet of ships he already managed. Jay’s mother had counseled him not to argue about that: she knew Father was implacable.

Robert was not merely the only son. He was Father all over again. Jay was different, and that was why his father spurned him. Like Father, Robert was clever, heartless, and mean with money. Jay was easygoing and spendthrift. Father hated people who were careless with money, especially his money. More than once he had shouted at Jay: “I sweat blood to make money that you throw away!”

Jay had made matters worse, just a few months ago, by running up a huge gambling debt, nine hundred pounds. He had got his mother to ask Father to pay. It was a small fortune, enough to buy Castle Jamisson, but Sir George could easily afford it. All the same he had acted as if he were losing a leg. Since then Jay had lost more money, although Father did not know about that.

Don’t fight your father, Mother reasoned, but ask for something modest. Younger sons often went out to the colonies: there was a good chance his father would give him the sugar plantation in Barbados, with its estate house and African slaves. Both he and his mother had spoken to his father about it. Sir George had not said yes, but he had not said no, and Jay had high hopes.

His father came in a few minutes later, stamping snow off his riding boots. A footman helped him off with his cloak. “Send a message to Ratchett,” Father said to the man. “I want two men guarding the bridge twenty-four hours a day. If McAsh tries to leave the glen they should seize him.”

There was only one bridge across the river, but there was another way out of the glen. Jay said: “What if McAsh goes over the mountain?”

“In this weather? He can try. As soon as we learn he’s gone, we can send a party around by road and have the sheriff and a squad of troops waiting on the other side by the time he gets there. But I doubt he’d ever make it.”

Jay was not so sure—these miners were as hardy as the deer, and McAsh was an obstinate wretch—but he did not argue with his father.

Lady Hallim arrived next. She was dark haired and dark eyed like her daughter, but she had none of Lizzie’s spark and crackle. She was rather stout, and her fleshy face was marked with lines of disapproval. “Let me take your coat,” Jay said, and helped her shrug off her heavy fur. “Come close to the fire, your hands are cold. Would you like some mulled wine?”

“What a nice boy you are, Jay,” she said. “I’d love some.”

The other churchgoers came in, rubbing their hands for warmth and dripping melted snow on the stone floor. Robert was doggedly making small talk to Lizzie, going from one trivial topic to another as if he had a list. Father began to discuss business with Henry Drome, a Glasgow merchant who was a relation of his first wife, Olive; and Jay’s mother spoke to Lady Hallim. The pastor and his wife had not come: perhaps they were sulking about the row in the church. There was a handful of other guests, mostly relatives: Sir George’s sister and her husband, Alicia’s younger brother and his wife, and one or two neighbors. Most of the conversations were about Malachi McAsh and his stupid letter.

After a while Lizzie’s raised voice was heard over the buzz of conversation, and one by one people turned to listen to her. “But why not?” she was saying. “I want to see for myself.”

Robert said gravely: “A coal mine is no place for a lady, believe me.”

“What’s this?” Sir George asked. “Does Miss Hallim want to go down a pit?”

“I believe I should know what it’s like,” Lizzie explained.

Robert said: “Apart from any other considerations, female clothing would make it almost impossible.”

“Then I’ll disguise myself as a man,” she shot back.

Sir George chuckled. “There are some girls I know who could manage that,” he said. “But you, my dear, are much too pretty to get away with it.” He obviously thought this a clever compliment and looked around for approval. The others laughed dutifully.

Jay’s mother nudged his father and said something in a low voice. “Ah, yes,” said Sir George. “Has everyone got a full cup?” Without waiting for an answer he went on: “Let us drink to my younger son, James Jamisson, known to us all as Jay, on his twenty-first birthday. To Jay!”

They drank the toast, then the women retired to prepare for dinner. The talk among the men turned to business. Henry Drome said: “I don’t like the news from America. It could cost us a lot of money.”

Jay knew what the man was talking about. The English government had imposed taxes on various commodities imported into the American colonies—tea, paper, glass, lead and painters’ colors—and the colonists were outraged.

Sir George said indignantly: “They want the army to protect them from Frenchies and redskins, but they don’t want to pay for it!”

“Nor will they, if they can help it,” said Drome. “The Boston town meeting has announced a boycott of all British imports. They’re giving up tea, and they’ve even agreed to save on black cloth by skimping on mourning clothes!”

Robert said: “If the other colonies follow the lead of Massachusetts, half our fleet of ships will have no cargoes.”

Sir George said: “The colonists are a damned gang of bandits, that’s all they are—and the Boston rum distillers are the worst.” Jay was surprised at how riled his father was: the problem had to be costing him money, for him to get so worked up about it. “The law obliges them to buy molasses from British plantations, but they smuggle in French molasses and drive the price down.”

“The Virginians are worse,” said Drome. “The tobacco planters never pay their debts.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Sir George. “I’ve just had a planter default—leaving me with a bankrupt plantation on my hands. A place called Mockjack Hall.”

Robert said: “Thank God there’s no import duty on convicts.”

There was a general murmur of agreement. The most profitable part of the Jamisson shipping business was transporting convicted criminals to America. Every year the courts sentenced several hundred people to transportation—it was an alternative to hanging as punishment for crimes such as stealing—and the government paid five pounds per head to the shipper. Nine out of ten transportees crossed the Atlantic on a Jamisson vessel. But the government payment was not the only way money was made. On the other side the convicts were obliged to do seven years’ unpaid labor, which meant they could be sold as seven-year slaves. Men fetched ten to fifteen pounds, women eight or nine, children less. With 130 or 140 convicts packed into the hold shoulder to shoulder like fish in a basket, Robert could show a profit of two thousand pounds—the purchase price of the ship—in a single voyage. It was a lucrative trade.

“Aye,” said Father, and he drained his goblet. “But even that would stop if the colonists had their way.”

The colonists complained about it constantly. Although they continued to buy the convicts—such was the shortage of cheap labor out there—they resented the mother country dumping its riffraff on them, and blamed the convicts for increasing crime.

“At least the coal mines are reliable,” Sir George said. “They’re the only thing we can count on these days. That’s why McAsh has to be crushed.”

Everyone had opinions about McAsh, and several different conversations broke out at once. Sir George seemed to have had enough of the subject, however. He turned to Robert. Adopting a jocular tone he said: “What about the Hallim girl, then, eh? A little jewel, if you ask me.”

“Elizabeth is very spirited,” Robert said dubiously.

“That’s true,” Father said with a laugh. “I remember when we shot the last wolf in this part of Scotland, eight or ten years ago, and she insisted on raising the cubs herself. She used to walk around with two little wolves on a leash. You’ve never seen anything like it in your life! The gamekeepers were outraged, said the cubs would escape and become a menace—but they died, fortunately.”