A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“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.

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