“I’m afraid we can’t even do that. They’re threatening to take away Hallim House and the estate.”
Lizzie was shocked. “They can’t!”
“They can—that’s what a mortgage means.”
“Who are they?”
Mother looked vague. “Well, your father’s lawyer is the one who arranged the loans for me, but I don’t exactly know who has put up the money. But that doesn’t matter. The point is that the lender wants his money back—or he will foreclose.”
“Mother … are you really saying we’re going to lose our home?”
“No, dear—not if you marry Robert.”
“I see,” Lizzie said solemnly.
The stable yard clock struck eleven. Mother stood up and kissed her. “Good night, dear. Sleep well.”
“Good night, Mother.”
Lizzie looked thoughtfully into the fire. She had known for years that it was her destiny to rescue their fortunes by marrying a wealthy man, and Robert had seemed as good as any other. She had not thought about it seriously until now: she did not think about things in advance, generally—she preferred to leave everything until the last moment, a habit that drove her mother crazy. But suddenly the prospect of marrying him appalled her. She felt a kind of physical disgust, as if she had swallowed something putrid.
But what could she do? She could not let her mother’s creditors throw them out of their home! What would they do? Where would they go? How could they make a living? She felt a chill of fear as she pictured the two of them in cold rented rooms in an Edinburgh tenement, writing begging letters to distant relations and doing sewing for pennies. Better to marry dull Robert. Could she bring herself to, though? Whenever she vowed to do something unpleasant but necessary, like shooting a sick old hound or going to shop for petticoat material, she would eventually change her mind and wriggle out of it.
She pinned up her unruly hair, then dressed in the disguise she had worn yesterday: breeches, riding boots, a linen shirt and a topcoat, and a man’s three-cornered hat which she secured with a hatpin. She darkened her cheeks with a dusting of soot from the chimney, but she decided against the curly wig this time. For warmth she added fur gloves, which also concealed her dainty hands, and a plaid blanket that made her shoulders seem broader.
When she heard midnight strike she took a candle and went downstairs.
She wondered nervously whether Jay would keep his word. Something might have happened to prevent him, or he could even have fallen asleep waiting. How disappointing that would be! But she found the kitchen door unlocked, as he had promised; and when she emerged into the stable yard he was waiting there, holding two ponies, murmuring softly to them to keep them quiet. She felt a glow of pleasure when he smiled at her in the moonlight. Without speaking, he handed her the reins of the smaller horse, then led the way out of the yard by the back path, avoiding the front drive which was overlooked by the principal bedrooms.
When they reached the road Jay unshrouded a lantern. They mounted their ponies and trotted away. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Jay said.
“I was afraid you might fall asleep waiting,” she replied, and they both laughed.
They rode up the glen toward the coal pits. “Did you have another row with your father this afternoon?” Lizzie asked him directly.
“Yes.”
He did not offer details, but Lizzie’s curiosity did not require encouragement. “What about?” she said.
She could not see his face but she sensed that he disliked her questioning. However, he answered mildly enough. “The same old thing, I’m afraid—my brother, Robert.”
“I think you’ve been very badly treated, if that’s any consolation.”
“It is—thank you.” He seemed to relax a bit.
As they approached the pits Lizzie’s eagerness and curiosity heightened, and she began to speculate about what the mine would be like and why McAsh had implied it was some kind of hellhole. Would it be dreadfully hot or freezing cold? Did the men snarl at one another and fight, like caged wildcats? Would the pit be evil smelling, or infested with mice, or silent and ghostly? She began to feel apprehensive. But whatever happens, she thought, I’ll know what it’s like—and McAsh will no longer be able to taunt me with my ignorance.
After half an hour or so they passed a small mountain of coal for sale. “Who’s there?” a voice barked, and a keeper with a deerhound straining at a leash entered the circle of Jay’s lantern. The keepers traditionally looked after the deer and tried to catch poachers, but nowadays many of them enforced discipline at the pits and guarded against theft of coal.
Jay lifted his lantern to show his face.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jamisson, sir,” the keeper said.
They rode on. The pithead itself was marked only by a horse trotting in a circle, turning a drum. As they got closer Lizzie saw that the drum wound a rope that pulled buckets of water out of the pit. “There’s always water in a mine,” Jay explained. “It seeps from the earth.” The old wooden buckets leaked, making the ground around the pithead a treacherous mixture of mud and ice.
They tied up their horses and went to the edge of the pit. It was a shaft about six feet square with a steep wooden staircase descending its sides in a zigzag. Lizzie could not see the bottom.
There was no handrail.
Lizzie suffered a moment of panic. “How deep is it?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“If I remember rightly, this pit is two hundred and ten feet,” Jay said.
Lizzie swallowed hard. If she called the whole thing off, Sir George and Robert might get to hear of it, then they would say: “I told you it was no place for a lady.” She could not bear that—she would rather go down a two-hundred-foot staircase without a handrail.
Gritting her teeth, she said: “What are we waiting for?”
If Jay sensed her fear he made no comment. He went ahead, lighting the steps for her, and she followed with her heart in her mouth. However, after a few steps he said: “Why don’t you put your hands on my shoulders, to steady yourself.” She did so gratefully.
As they descended, the wooden buckets of water waltzed up the well in the middle of the shaft, banging against the empty ones going down, frequently splashing icy water on Lizzie. She had a scary vision of herself slipping off the stairs and tumbling crazily down the shaft, crashing into the buckets, overturning dozens of them before she hit the bottom of the shaft and died.
After a while Jay stopped to let her rest for a few moments. Although she thought of herself as fit and active, her legs ached and she was breathing hard. Wanting to give him the impression she was not tired, she made conversation. “You seem to know a lot about the mines—where the water comes from and how deep the pit is and so on.”
“Coal is a constant topic of conversation in our family—it’s where most of our money comes from. But I spent one summer with Harry Ratchett, the viewer, about six years ago. Mother had decided she wanted me to learn all about the business, in the hope that one day Father would want me to run it. Foolish aspiration.”
Lizzie felt sorry for him.
They went on. A few minutes later the stairs ended in a deck that gave access to two tunnels. Below the level of the tunnels, the shaft was full of water. The pool was emptied by the buckets but constantly replenished by ditches that drained the tunnels. Lizzie stared into the darkness of the tunnels, her heart filled with mingled curiosity and fear.
Jay stepped off the deck into a tunnel, turned, and gave his hand to Lizzie. His grasp was firm and dry. As she entered the tunnel he drew her hand to his lips and kissed it. She was pleased by this little piece of gallantry.