Everywhere I looked there was disaster. I was anxious about the situation with Justin, although I confess I had little sympathy with him. My thoughts were all for Morwenna who might discover in due course that her husband was a cheat. Poor Morwenna, she was less worldly than I. How would she take it?
I longed for something to happen, something which would take me away from this increasingly unpleasant situation in which I found myself.
My prayers were answered … but not in the way I had expected.
Afterwards I learned a little about the methods which were used in the mines. When gold had first been discovered here in the early fifties, mining had been comparatively simple. That was when the presence of gold had been found to exist in the valleys … the deposit formed in dried-up streams. It was near the surface of the earth. That was soon discovered and mined. But now they had to dig deeper down into the earth and that was why deep shafts had to be sunk. After one or two fatal accidents, it was realized that the clay, gravel and sand had to be shored up with wood.
When the earth which might contain gold was brought to the surface it was put into wheelbarrows and taken to water to be what they called puddled and washed by means of the cradle, to separate the soil from the gold.
It was a disheartening process; and again and again the results of their efforts were fruitless. Now and again there was the tiny speck … nothing much in itself, but a reason for hope.
As the shaft grew deeper and deeper, naturally the danger increased. There were poisons from rotting vegetation. There was one young man in the town who was a permanent invalid. He had worked with his father and had been down below when there had been a slight fall of earth which meant it was some hours before they could dig him out. As a result he had a perpetual cough and it was obvious that he was slowly dying.
So it was very necessary that the timber which propped up the sides of the shaft was strong enough to hold back the earth.
It was early afternoon. I was on my way to the store. I knew Mrs. Bowles would want to know how little Pedrek was faring: she would listen to accounts of his actions, head on one side, lips pursued, sparkling with self-congratulatory pleasure. Her child, the one who might never have been brought into the world but for her skill.
Just as I was about to enter the shop, I heard the shouts. I stood listening. Mrs. Bowles came out of the shop and stood beside me, her eyes grave.
Men had left their work and were running to a certain spot.
“There’s trouble,” said Mrs. Bowles. “Arthur! Quick!”
Arthur joined us and we ran with the crowd. I felt a fearful apprehension for they were running in the direction of our shaft.
I was on the edge of the crowd.
I saw Gervaise. Men were crowding round him. I tried to push towards him.
I heard someone say: “Someone’s down there.”
“It’s Cartwright. It must be …” said another.
“Gervaise!” I called. “Gervaise.”
He did not hear me.
“What’s happening?” I said.
One of the men turned and looked at me. “Timber must have given way.”
I came a little nearer. It was not easy to force my way through.
Gervaise said: “He’s down there. I’m going to get him.”
“You’re a fool, man,” said Bill Merrywether, one of the oldest and most experienced of the miners. “You’d never do it.”
“I’m going,” repeated Gervaise.
“Gervaise! Gervaise!” I cried.
He turned briefly and gave me a smile of tenderness.
Bill Merrywether attempted to restrain him but he pushed him aside. I watched him disappear down the shaft.
Someone turned and looked at me. It was one of the miners.
“It’s all right, me dear,” he said.
Someone else said: “He’s crazy. It’ll be the two of ’em now.”
“What’s going on?” I begged. “Tell me.”
Mrs. Bowles was beside me. She put an arm round me. “It’s a fall,” she said. “It will be all right.”
“My God,” said someone. “He’s got guts.”
“Gone in to save his mate.”
“Madness. Suicide.”
Nobody answered.
I tried to fight my way to the head of the mine, but several of them held me back.
“You can’t do nothing,” said one of the miners. “We’ve just got to wait, my dear, to be ready if …”
I don’t know how long it was. Time stood still. The silence was intense. All that sky … the scene which had become so repugnant to me … and all these people now joined together as though in silent prayer.
How long? I do not know. Seconds … minutes … hours. I kept thinking of them in that room, Gervaise glaring at Justin. Gervaise the gambler, Justin the cheat … and they were down in the mine together … the mine I had always subconsciously feared and hated.
There was a sudden shout.
Something was happening. As one person we moved towards the mine.
I saw Justin then. He was unconscious. Gervaise was holding him, pushing him upwards. Several men had rushed forward. They had Justin now. They had dragged him out. For a moment I glimpsed Gervaise. I saw his face triumphant … grimed with dirt. I saw the flash of his white teeth.
And then there was a rumbling sound. Someone reached out to seize him … but he was no longer there.
We heard the terrible sound of falling earth. The shaft had collapsed … taking Gervaise with it.
It took them four hours to dig him out. There was mourning throughout the township for a brave man. And I had become a widow.
Justin was carried to the shack. Morwenna left Golden Hall and came to him. He was shaken and bruised but there was nothing from which he could not recover.
My emotions were in too much turmoil for me to think clearly. I believed many of them were concerned for me. There was I, six months pregnant, having lost my husband in dramatic circumstances.
Morwenna insisted on looking after me, as well as Justin.
She could not speak of Gervaise’s heroic deed, but I knew it was uppermost in her mind.
The whole of the township wanted to take care of me. They did all they could to help—each in his or her own way. I was deeply touched and I thought how disaster brought out the best in people. The good and the evil, they were there in us all. Recently I had thought a great deal about the lust for gold, the greed and the envy. I had seen it in this place so clearly where now I saw the caring compassion.
I thought often of Gervaise, remembering the happy times—how kind he had been on our wedding night; how gentle he had always been to me. I forgot that incident at the auberge; I forgot the debts. When one has lost someone one has loved, one remembers only the good things.
I had a great deal to think about; my future had changed.
Ben came to see me.
He sat in the shack and looked at me sorrowfully.
“Oh, Angel, what can I say? If there is anything I can do to help …”
I smiled. “That is what everyone is saying to me.”
“If only …”
I looked at him pleadingly. I knew what he was going to say and I could not bear it.
“I suppose you will go home now,” he said.
I nodded. “I shall have to wait until the child is born.”
He looked round the shack. “I hate to think of you in this place.”
“I’ll be all right. It has happened to others.”
“And only Mrs. Bowles. I shall have Dr. Field here. He shall stay at the Hall.”
I smiled wanly. “You are forgetting, Ben. This is nothing to do with you.”