Comparison with Maypole was an unexpected sting.
“Rose, take the clogs and I will never bother you again.”
“I’ll take them on that account only.”
While Blair led her out, the storm arrived with a heave of tree boughs. He asked himself why he was leading the way when Rose knew the path through the wood better than he did, but she seemed to expect it, like the princess of a tiny kingdom.
“Ah went down pit when ah were six. They lifted us oop an’ down in baskets. Ah worked a brace o’ canvas an’ frame t’let air in. Otherwise folk below coodn’t breathe, they’d die.
“When ah was eight ah was big enough t’draw coal. That means drag it. Ah had a chain went around m’neck an’ between m’legs t’sledge, same as me mum an’ all m’sisters. Ah was a strung lass an’ ah’d draw forty, fifty pound o’coal. No ponies in that pit. So tight tha could barely squeeze through.
“Was it hot? Up face, where they took t’coal, everyone was stripped. Like Adam an’ Eve. Tha were crawlin’ through water an’ muck. Things happened t’girls. That’s wha there was t’big Reform an’ Parliament put all t’girls on top o’pit. Not because of our work but because of our morality. That’s how ah become a pit girl.
“Ah didn’t mind t’work. Sortin’ coal. Tippin’ tubs into wagons. Cold in t’winter. Tha danced just t’stay warm. There’s worse than freezin’. M’first girl, when she coom t’work on the brew she was caught b’tween wagons an’ was crooshed. She was ten. T’owners an’ t’managers coom by t’give us five shillin’s for her. That’s t’death rate. Five shillin’s fur oldest girl, three shillin’s fur each girl after.”
“What did you do?” Blair asked.
“Tha genuflect an’ say, yessir, nosir, three bags full, sir.”
When the kettle rattled, Mary Jaxon moved it to a cold burner and put in a tea ball to steep. The center of any miner’s home was a cast-iron range. Its fender was polished to a shine. The smell of bread emanated from the oven. The design of the house was the same as Rose Molyneux’s, but in Mary Jaxon’s kitchen there were a dozen children packed on the stairs to stare at the visitor.
Around the table were Blair and a circle of neighbors, men with the black necks and red-rimmed eyes of miners, no one Blair knew except the little stableman who had cursed him at the Hannay pit. Behind them stood their wives; it was understood that men home from work had the first rights to chairs. Though the women had covered worn dresses with their best shawls, from the way they folded their sinewy arms and narrowed their eyes Blair detected a higher general level of suspicion. Like Mary Jaxon, they had gone from the pit brow to a row house, bearing children one a year on wages that dried up in the summer when coal prices dropped or stopped completely during strikes. Mary Jaxon made a curious hostess, like the mother of a wolf pack, a combination of ferocity and hospitality. Blair had returned the carriage to Leveret and come alone on foot to draw as little attention as possible, but Mary Jaxon had at once stepped out of the back of her house and summoned neighbors from the entire alley. She said Scholes was the sort of community where interesting visitors were shared.
“Tha like tay?” Mary asked.
“I’d enjoy some, thanks,” Blair said.
“Art tha really from America?” a girl asked from a middle step.
“Yes.”
A boy from a bottom of the stairs asked, “Art th’a red Indian?”
“No.”
They watched him fixedly, undiscouraged, as if he might turn into one.
Blair asked Mrs. Jaxon, “The last time Reverend Maypole came by, what did you talk about?”
“About t’boons God’s given t’workin’man. Patience, sufferin’ an’ all t’wee angels we supply. For a woman t’boons are dooble.”
The miners shifted uneasily in their chairs, but nods from the wives said that Mary Jaxon spoke for them.
“Anything else?” Blair asked.
“Reverend Maypole wanted us all t’kneel an’ pray fur t’health of t’Prince of Wales, who’d got a sniffle. There’s that Queen with her huge German family, an’ that we don’t hang them ah think is mercy enough.”
A titter went up the steps.
“An’ he was a great one fur Christian sports,” one of the men offered.
“Which are?” Blair asked.
A small boy on the stairs said, “Cricket.”
“Rugby,” a larger boy said and hit the first.
Mary Jaxon said, “Remember, t’following afternoon, seventy-six men was laid like brunt matches around pit head at t’Hannay mine. No one noticed a priest comin’ or goin’. Not unless he could raise t’dead. Tha understand everythin’ ah’m sayin’?”
“Yes.” Blair also understood that he would be getting no information. Maybe it was the explosion, he thought. Every family had lost a son, father, husband, brother—at the least a close friend. Perhaps that was why they were in the kitchen, because front parlors were used for laying out the dead. Possibly Mrs. Jaxon and her neighbors were upset about his questions. In any case, he was ready to leave even though everyone else in the kitchen continued to stare at him with dumb anticipation.
“Tell us about Africa,” Mary Jaxon said.
“Africa?”
“Aye.” Her eyes shot to the stairway. “T’babs know nothin’ of t’world. They plan t’be ignorant aw their lives. They think they can’t be bothered t’read or write ’cause they’re goin’ down pit.”
“A lecture for ‘the babs’?” Blair asked.
“If tha don’t mind.”
Entertainment from the outside was rare in Wigan, Blair knew. This was a world where a hurdy-gurdy drew a crowd. Still, it also struck him that other travelers on their return from Africa delivered their talks in the map room of the Royal Society. Gentlemen travelers, of course. Celebrated explorers. In formal clothes with official guests, champagne, toasts and a silver medal from the Society. Blair never imagined they would give him one, but the disparity was telling. The Society had his maps and reports, even a monograph or two, and here he was at his debut in Wigan, in a kitchen suffused by the close smells of stew and wet wool, accompanied by the occasional knock of a child’s clog against a stair.
Blair stood. “I have to go. Thanks for the tea.”
“Tha art the Blair from Africa?” one of the miners asked.
“Maybe not. Good night.”
“I knew it. A fake,” the miner’s wife said.
On his way through the dark parlor to the front door he walked into a table. Stopped short, he looked at an oval mirror beside the hat rack and saw a gaunt man in the bent hurry of a thief, although he hadn’t taken anything but their decent opinion of him. Of course the decent opinion had nothing to do with him. It was a gift because they had little else to give. What did it matter? It had nothing to do with him at all.
“Something does occur to me,” Blair said as he returned to the kitchen. The adults were still trading expressions of outrage over his departure. Half the children had trooped down the stairs; at the sound of his voice, they climbed back up. Blair took his seat as if he hadn’t left. “If you do go to Africa or anywhere in the world, you will need to write legibly and read with understanding, a perfect case in point being the late governor of Sierra Leone, Sir Charles Macarthy, who led a thousand Fanti troops against the Ashanti of the Gold Coast. Although the brave Macarthy was warned by scouts how badly he was outnumbered by Ashanti warriors, he spurned retreat and so the two armies clashed at the Battle of Assamacow.”
His audience, even the stableman, resumed their earlier seats and positions. Mary Jaxon poured more tea.
“The Fanti were stalwart soldiers drilled in the British manner, but the Ashanti were from a kingdom that had not only conquered other African tribes, but withstood the Danish, Dutch and Portuguese. The fate of West Africa stood in the balance. Although Macarthy was a courageous general, the enemy host swarmed on all sides. The fight was close, first with riflery, then with spears and swords. Then the worst poss
ible thing that could happen to Macarthy did happen: he ran out of ammunition.”
Blair paused to sip from his cup. From the stairs a diagonal of eyes watched every move.
“Fortunately, he had an excellent runner. Macarthy wrote a message to his ordnance keeper demanding the ammunition, and the runner ran off with it, dashing through a momentary breach in the Ashanti lines. Macarthy and his Fanti allies held on grimly, harboring every shot. You can imagine their relief when, following the bank of the river, the runner returned leading two pack mules laden with crates. And then imagine their disappointment and disbelief when they opened the boxes and found not ammunition but macaroni. The ordnance keeper had not read Macarthy’s request correctly. Hunched under enemy bullets, Macarthy wrote a second note. Again the runner slipped into shifting mists of smoke. Again Macarthy and his loyal, dwindling troops held out, this time with no ammunition of their own at all, defending themselves only with steel. And again the runner broke through the siege and returned with yet two more mules and crates. They broke open the crates.”
Blair sipped again, very slowly, and set down his cup.
“More macaroni. The ordnance keeper simply could not make out anything Macarthy wrote. The rest of the story gets pretty nasty. The Ashanti completely overran them. The Fanti were slaughtered almost to a man. Macarthy fought as long as he could, propped himself against a tree and shot himself rather than be captured. It was probably wise. The Ashanti cut off his head and boiled his brains. They roasted the rest of him, and his skull they took back to the capital of Ashantiland to worship along with a pile of skulls of other enemies they admired, because Macarthy was a valiant fighter although he was an unusually bad penman.”
A silence followed. Around the table faces were warm and flushed.
“B’gum, that was a gripper,” one of the men said and sat back.
“T’ole story was macaroni,” a woman said.
“S’true?” the man asked.
“Pretty much, for an African story. In fact, it’s one of the truest I know,” Blair said.
“Gor,” said a boy.
“Watch tha mouth,” a mother said.
A miner hunched forward. “Is there gold mines in t’Gold Coast?”
“Yes, and deposits of granite, gneiss and quartz that suggest there is a good deal more gold undiscovered. A person who learned some geology would have a great advantage.”
“We’re aw geologists here when it comes t’coal.”
“That’s true,” Blair said.
“Did tha shoot a gorilla?” the smallest boy asked.
“No, I’ve never seen a gorilla.”
“Elephant?”
“Not shot one.”
“Real explorers do,” the boy maintained.
“I’ve noticed. But real explorers travel with as many as a hundred porters. Porters may carry shaving soap and fine wine, but it’s the explorer’s job to get fresh meat for the expedition. Besides, he has the rifles. Since I only had a few men with me, I shot only antelope, which are like deer.”
The stableman finally spoke. “So a man could make a fortune in gold down there.”
“Absolutely. More likely, though, he’ll die of malaria, guinea worm or yellow jack. I wouldn’t send any man there who had a family or a chance of happiness nearer home.”
“Tha went.”
“With blinkers on, if you know what I mean.”
“Ah do.” The stableman’s face split into a grin.
Blair told them how to prepare dried rats and bats, drink palm wine, weather the winds of the dry season and the tornadoes of the rains, wake to the screams of monkeys and go to sleep to the mad laugh of hyenas. How to address the Ashanti king, which was through an intermediary, while the king sat on a golden stool under a golden parasol and pretended to hear nothing. How to back away from the king, staying low. How the king moved slowly and majestically, like Queen Victoria, but bigger and browner and in flashier clothes.
The questions around the kitchen had none of the archness of a salon. Their interest was so pure and intense that it lit faces—both parents and children—as if a window to the sun had been thrown open. If his answers weren’t the lecture he’d ever imagined giving, but more like the sort of shapeless baggage of impressions that a traveler opened for assembled relatives, the experience was still curiously enjoyable.
When he left Mary Jaxon’s door an hour later, he found that he had forgotten about the rain, a cold, steady deluge that ran off the rooflines in ropes. Storefront shops had closed their shutters. Beerhouses and pubs were muffled by the downpour. The streets were almost cleared of wagons and there were certainly no cabs. He pulled his hat brim low and set off toward his hotel.
Lamps lit only the corners of long, dark blocks. Lakes appeared where streets had sunk over old mine shafts. He found himself detouring through side streets and back alleys to make his way to the center of town. The farther he went, though, the narrower the alleys got and the more ashpits and fewer people he saw. He seemed to be trapped within a maze of backyard fences, pigeon lofts and pigsties. The locals obviously knew a better route, but by the time he’d decided to ask, there was no one else around.
Blair had spent half his life trying to find his way. He never minded asking where he was. Africans loved giving directions; African etiquette could turn simple instructions into an inescapable hour of sociability. He was trying to find his way now and there wasn’t even an African in sight.
As he came out of the alley he found himself at a field of high grass and thistles that rose to a horizon edged with the sulfuric glow of mill ovens fading in and out of the rain like chain lightning. He climbed the ridge and discovered that it ended abruptly at a black dune stretching into the dark in either direction. The dune was coal slag, the mountain of rock and dirt and carbon dust left after the lifetime of a mine, after it had been driven, worked out and abandoned. The slag had dropped down of its own weight into the collapsed workings of the mine like the caldera of an ancient volcano. As with a volcano, there were lingering, opalescent signs of life, votive candle glimmers as coal dust heated and ignited spontaneously within the slag, producing relatively harmless blue flames that worked their way through dirt to dart here and there—a second in each place—as evanescent, almost animated imps of fire. Rain couldn’t quench them; in fact, low pressure brought them out.
There was light enough for Blair to see an abandoned brick kiln with the stub of a chimney teetering on the edge of the grass and, in the deepest point of the slag pit, an inky pool with the rest of the chimney standing diagonally up from the middle. How deep the water was depended on how tall the chimney was. There was even enough light for him to use his compass.
“Lost?”
It was Bill Jaxon’s voice. He was the only person Blair would have expected to see. He finished reading the compass and discovered that he’d gotten turned around and headed north. If he skirted the slag to the west he could reconnect with streets that would take him directly back to Scholes Bridge.
“I said, are you lost?” Bill emerged from the shadow of the alley and walked up the ridge to where Blair stood.
“Not anymore, thanks.”
Jaxon topped Blair by half a head. With his cap and longish hair, bunched-up woolen jacket and white scarf trying to fly in the wind as it swept up the face of the slag, he looked even larger. Or was it the clogs? Blair reminded himself to add an inch for them.
“I asked you to not bother Rose Molyneux, but you keep at her. Now you’re at my mother. Why are you doing this?”
“I’m asking about Reverend Maypole, the same as I asked you. That’s all.”
“You think Rose or my mother did something to Reverend Maypole?”
“No, I’m just asking what Maypole said, what he seemed like, the same as I ask everyone else.”
“But I told you not to.”
That was true. Blair had faith that he could talk himself out of a pinch. The main thing was to never make an adversary—Ashanti, Fan
ti, Mexican, whatever—lose face. It also helped to have no self-respect. All the same, he put the compass in his pocket to keep his hands free.
“Bill, the Bishop hired me to do this. If I don’t, someone else will.”
“No, they won’t. This has nothing to do with finding Maypole.”
“For me it’s just Maypole.”
“But you’ve put me in a position. People hear about you socializing with Rose and it puts me in a position.”
“I understand. Bill, the last thing I want is to put you in a position. You’re the champion here, ruler of the nether world. I’m not even a challenger.”
“You’re not a fighter.”
“Or a lover. I’m a mining engineer, and there are some mines calling to me from the other side of the world right now, but I can’t go until I’ve found what happened to Maypole.”
Rivulets of water ran down his neck and under his collar. Under his cap, Bill’s face was blank as marble. He looked down at Blair’s feet.
“What are you wearing?”
“Not clogs. I’m not going to fight.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.”
Bill seemed to think the problem through. “I wish I had a choice.”
“You do.”
“But you got the clogs?”
“I got your gift. No, thanks. I gave the clogs to Rose to give back to you.”
“So you did see Rose again.”
An unanswerable question. Blair had the sense—the sense of falling from the top of a tall ladder—that words, no matter how glib, would never replace wings.
“To give back—”
He didn’t see the kick. His left leg felt paralyzed from the hip down. Bill bounced back quickly, lightly for a big man, and using his other foot like a scythe, scooped up both Blair’s legs. Blair landed on his side and rolled away from a kick that raked his back.
“I told you to stay away from Rose, didn’t I?” Bill said.
Blair got to his knees, his left leg numb. Bill feinted from side to side, and Blair ducked as a clog swung at his face and crawled backward from the kick that followed that. There was something ignominious about the situation, he thought. He had survived attacks with spears and guns in the most exotic parts of the world, and here he was on the verge of being kicked to death in an English coal town.
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