“My heart is given to Ruby,” he told us. “Nothing in the world will change that. No one would be more welcome in my life than one who brings me assurance that she is well.”
Five weeks after Ruby left home, a letter arrived. We knew now that she was in America. She spoke of being in Boston, but possibly going to New York. She expressed affection and a longing for home, but did not tell us why she had left. There was relief in knowing that no physical harm had come to her. But the ashes of the fire that once warmed Marie’s home were grey and cold.
Edwin’s distaste for Alexander Murd continued without abatement. Murd radiated civility and charm with men of business who could help him to fresh profits. But he was a different man with others. His voice was harsh as he demanded money that was owed to him or sought to limit what he owed.
Edwin declined an invitation to accompany Isabella to a second opera. That did not keep her from visiting the office and hovering over him on a particularly unpleasant morning.
“How is Miss Spriggs, who I saw you with on the street not long ago?”
“I have not seen her lately,” Edwin replied.
“I suppose she has lost interest in you.”
“Perhaps.”
“Most likely, she has run off with a man more suited to her class.”
There was a look of malignant satisfaction in Isabella’s eyes.
“In any event, I suppose that Miss Spriggs has made clear her lack of interest in you.”
Edwin did not respond.
“I have an intuition in these things,” Isabella continued. “I ought to know.”
Ought to, Edwin thought to himself. But it is unlikely that you do. There are treasures of the heart that gold cannot purchase. I would not expect you to understand.
Later that day, the office secretary was at his desk, reading letters that he was to open before parceling them into separate piles for distribution. The post had come in heavy that morning, and he had a good deal to do.
A man of middle age entered. He wore a grey outer coat with a narrow collar, black pants, and a waistcoat fashioned from ribbed black silk. His cheekbones were high and prominent, and his cheeks themselves so hollow that he seemed to be sucking them in.
He was in an agitated state.
“My name is Harold Plepman. I wish to see Mr. Murd.”
“Do you have an appointment, sir?”
“I am the purchaser of coal for the Hospital for Foundling Children. It is about a matter of payment.”
Murd was disinclined to receive the visitor when his secretary announced the arrival.
Harold Plepman sat and waited.
Arthur Abbott, the accountant, went into Murd’s office. Several minutes later, he reappeared and approached the uninvited Mr. Plepman.
“You are not to come here. Business of this nature is conducted away from the office.”
“I ought to have got more money,” Plepman said. He was perspiring in the summer heat.
“You have been well compensated.”
“Tell Mr. Murd that I know what constitutes a fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain with him.”
Abbott went back into Murd’s office and closed the door behind him.
Moments later, Murd appeared.
“You will leave now,” he told Plepman.
“One hundred pounds is not enough,” Plepman said.
“I do not ask. I direct. If you come here again, you will be subjected to criminal prosecution.”
A wave of his hand was tantamount to dismissal.
Plepman swallowed hard and left the office.
“It was a misunderstanding with regard to a minor matter,” Murd told the employees, all of whom had been watching and none of whom, other than Arthur Abbott, seemed to know what the conversation had been about. “I believe it had to do with a transaction that Edwin handled.”
“You are mistaken, sir,” Edwin corrected. “I have had no transactions with that gentleman.”
Murd frowned and, without more, returned to his private office. Soon after, Arthur Abbott approached Edwin.
“Mr. Murd would like to see you,” he said.
Murd was sitting behind his desk when Edwin entered.
“It is not necessary for you to correct me on matters of business.”
“I understand, sir. But I have had no dealings with that gentleman, nor do I have any knowledge regarding what his grievance was about.”
“It is not necessary that you know. You are not to raise the subject with me or with anyone else again.”
“Since you brought my name into the matter, sir, I would like to know what it is about.”
“All I desire, Mr. Chatfield, is that it be forgotten. All that you need to do is forget it.”
Murd reached for a leather-bound ledger on his desk.
“You talk of books, Mr. Chatfield. This is the most treasured book in my library. It is a delightful book, all true and as real as the gold spoken of in its pages. It is written in my own hand for my own particular reading. None of your storybook writers will ever make a book as good as this.”
Murd took a small key from his jacket pocket as Edwin had seen him do before, unlocked the drawer in his desk in which there was another key, and used the second key to open a cabinet. Then he placed the ledger on a shelf beside several similar books, locked the cabinet, and returned to his desk.
“If you had more work to do, perhaps you would ask fewer questions. I would like a memorandum from you by tomorrow morning. You are to summarize what we know at the present time regarding the cost of shipping coal from land that is under consideration for acquisition by the company. I trust that will not be a problem for you.”
The timing of the assignment was punitive. Edwin understood that. It meant a long night’s work to compile information that Murd, most likely, already had at his disposal. But now was not the proper time for rebellion.
That night, Edwin remained at his desk long after everyone else had left the office. The day’s events resounded through his mind.
“I am the purchaser of coal for the Hospital for Foundling Children. It is about a matter of payment. I ought to have got more money.”
Harold Plepman was purchasing coal. He should be paying out money, not receiving it.
“Business of this nature is conducted away from the office. If you come here again, you will be subjected to criminal prosecution.”
The wheels in Edwin’s head were turning. A battle with his conscience followed as he considered the moral ambiguities inherent in what he was about to do.
Perhaps the instant act was wrong, but there were larger ethical issues.
Edwin went into Murd’s private office. A silver letter opener in the shape of a sword lay on Murd’s desk. Edwin took the letter opener and inserted its point into the crack above the drawer where Murd kept the key to his cabinet.
The lock held firm.
Edwin manipulated the blade again . . . A third time . . .
There was a click.
Edwin opened the drawer and, taking care not to disturb its contents, removed the key from its resting place. Then he unlocked the cabinet and took out the ledgers, all the while listening for sounds of danger in the night.
There were four ledgers. He spread them out on Murd’s desk and began to read.
Over the next six hours, Edwin explored the mysteries of Alexander Murd’s business, dissecting its nerves and fibres. It was all there. A full record of invoices, receipts, percentages on dealings, the distribution of money to third parties. The numbers were plain and clear enough that Edwin, with what he knew of the business, was able to interpret them without difficulty.
The Hospital for Foundling Children was paying far more for coal than similarly situated purchasers, and had been for several years. Within a week of each such purchase, one hundred pounds was transferred to Murd’s solicitors to be given to Harold Plepman.
The same lack of uniformity in price, followed by payments to purchasing agents, exist
ed with regard to numerous other buyers of coal.
In other areas of the business—such as amounts paid to transport coal—there were irregularities of a similar nature. Only here, Murd appeared to pay less than the standard amount.
Edwin copied the names and numbers that he thought most important onto paper of his own. Then he placed Murd’s ledgers back in the cabinet, locked it, and returned Murd’s key to the proper place in the desk. Finally, he closed the desk drawer tight and manipulated the lock shut with the letter opener.
The memorandum that Murd had ordered him to write was hastily written. Edwin would deal with the consequences of its shortcomings in the morning. He extinguished his candle and stole out onto the dark streets of London.
The next day, Edwin arrived at the office at his normal hour. Murd spent most of the morning with the door to his private room closed. Several messengers came and went. With each one, a sense of urgency seemed to grow heavier in the air. Edwin told himself that it was only his imagination.
He had tried his best to restore everything in the desk and cabinet precisely as he had found it. But centimeters matter. The angle of a piece of paper resting on a shelf matters. The fear of discovery grew.
“Mr. Murd would like to see you in his private room,” Arthur Abbott told Edwin.
Edwin steeled his emotions for whatever lay ahead.
Murd was sitting behind his desk with a dark look on his face.
“You wished to see me, sir.”
“There has been an accident of a serious nature at the Lancashire mine.”
A sinking sensation swept through Edwin.
“The extent of damage is unknown at the present time,” Murd continued. “Lives have been lost, and the mining of coal has been temporarily suspended. There is a threat of violence and the possibility of action by the miners that might spread to other sites.
“I am sending my solicitor, Albert Diamond, to Lancashire this morning. He will observe and gather evidence for the inquest that is sure to follow. You have a way with people, and you were well received by the miners on your visit to Lancashire. I would like you to accompany Mr. Diamond to Lancashire. You will tell the miners that I have the greatest sympathy for their suffering, but that candor obliges you to affirm that nothing improper preceded the accident. You are of no use to me unless you advance this position. I expect that you will conduct yourself in an appropriate manner. You are to calm the miners, not incite them.”
The journey to Lancashire took eight hours.
Edwin had met Albert Diamond briefly on several prior occasions. He was a man of formal bearing with a jutting chin that seemed as though it would facilitate passage through a crowded room.
As the train travelled north, the solicitor explained to Edwin that handling the mine incident would involve a combination of diplomacy and management. At day’s end, they came to the mining town. The setting sun glared upon the horizon through a grey haze like a sullen blood-stained eye.
Edwin and Albert Diamond disembarked from the train. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe, and the same blighted ground. But now, death cast a heavier pall. Grief and urgency were everywhere.
The mine site resembled a deadly battlefield. An explosion had happened. More than one hundred men, women, and children working underground had been swept from the face of the earth, many of them without a moment for penitence or prayer.
Doom hung over the scene, imparting a squalid sickly hue. Men and women exerted themselves with steady courage, hoping to rescue friends trapped underground and to recover the bodies of others. Torches burned all night.
The miners had been working at the end of an upwardly inclined tunnel ninety yards off the main shaft. When a tunnel is on an upward slant, any gas that is present collects in the upper end. The men broke through into the end of another up-hill tunnel. There was a rush of gas. Coal dust flew as luminous sparks. The air became inflammable, scorching all within its reach. There was an explosion. Clothes were burned and hair singed off. Skin and flesh were torn apart.
The whole town had gathered for the rescue effort. Teams of workers had been formed. They dug all through the night and through the next day and through another night, then day again. Digging deeper and deeper into the crust of the earth, carrying timber and rock away, searching for the dead with little hope of survivors.
Bodies were pulled up from the pit. Each time, there was a cry. “Alive or dead?”
Then a hush.
“Some dead. Some alive, but badly hurt.”
Night came again. The work of rescue went on. Most of the bodies were scorched, some beyond recognition.
“My dear sweet boy had bright blue eyes and a handsome smile,” a grieving mother told the undertaker. “Is he among them?”
“It would be best if she stay away,” the boy’s father was told. “Let her remember her son as he was before.”
The parents of a young man still not accounted for looked at each other with thoughts that they dared not speak.
A father stroked the hand of his dead boy, eleven years old. The suffering mother, her heart breaking, threw herself to her knees and pled with the Almighty to release her from her misery.
Two doctors worked round the clock, amputating crushed limbs of the living and struggling heroically but often in vain to close arteries that their cruel knife had severed.
The local preacher walked among the bodies. It was the business of his life to do so. Sometimes, he was able to go back to a family and say, “I have found him.”
Edwin helped in the rescue effort, carrying bodies and stones. Never before had he been present at the precise moment when the breath of life left a living soul. With two others, he carried a man to the hovel that was his home. The room smelled of rot. The walls were dark with soot and grease. A coarse tallow candle cast feeble rays of light.
The man was put on the bed that he and his wife had shared for years. His breathing was thick. He had bitten nearly through his lower lip in the violence of his suffering. The blood that flowed from the wound had trickled down his chin and stained his shirt. It was plain that death was upon him.
His wife sat at his side.
“There is no air here,” the man whispered, his voice barely audible. “This place pollutes it. If I could get clear of this dreadful place, even if only to die, I would thank God for His mercy.”
“We have breathed together for a long time,” his wife told him.
She reached out and held his hand in her own.
His eyes were barely open.
“I am worn out. I have been wearing out since the age of ten when I first entered the mines. Thirty years, my love. Thirty years in this hideous grave.”
He spoke so faintly that she bent close to hear the sounds his pale lips made.
“It is hard to leave you. But it is God’s will, and you must bear it. Promise me that, if you should ever grow rich and leave this dreadful place, you will take me with you to be buried beneath green grass and a blue sky by glistening water. Promise me that you will, so I may rest in peace.”
“I promise.”
The man relaxed his grasp of his wife’s hand. A deep sigh escaped his lips, and a smile played upon his face. Then the smile faded into a rigid ghastly stare.
She spoke his name, but there was no reply. She listened for his breath, but no sound came. She felt for the beating of his heart, but there was none. He was dead, past all help or need of it.
The town reeked with misery and wretchedness. Night after night, death carts filled with rude coffins rumbled by. Children cried, grown men grieved, women shrieked.
The smoke serpents that rose from the chimneys were indifferent to who was saved and who was lost.
Julian White had authorized the payment of five shillings for the bringing up to the surface of each body and transporting it to the undertaker. He and Albert Diamond stayed apart from the suffering as best they could. But they spoke often with the overseer, Jonathan Hunt. And they were plottin
g.
The first burials were on a Sunday. There had been rain the day before and all through the night. It was hot and muggy. The leaves were soaked and heavy upon the trees.
The bodies of one hundred twenty men, women, and children had been recovered. Nineteen were still unaccounted for. Mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters had all been lost. To supply the heavy demand for coffins, the undertaker had called upon several of the surviving miners who were handy with tools to assist him.
Murd’s mining company paid for the coffins, each one having a velvet pall. The church vicar gave the burial ground free.
There was a funeral service in a mouldy old church. Rain fell upon the stained glass windows with a constant weary sound. The preacher spoke of God’s love and redemption through Christ.
Edwin was not a believer. He comforted himself now by holding to the faith that nothing innocent or good is forgotten. Those who die continue on in the better thoughts of those who loved them and, through the living, play a part in the redeeming of the world.
His eyes drifted to an elderly woman, who sat with a church Bible open before her.
“She cannot read,” Edwin thought. “No one who can read looks at a book like one who cannot.”
After the service, the coffins were borne slowly out of the church on men’s shoulders. A dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by lamentations of grief and the shuffling steps of the bearers.
A miner stood in the graveyard, readying the marker for his son’s grave. He had just enough learning to be able to spell it out.
A miserably dressed woman sat upon a pile of stones, seeking no shelter from the rain, letting it fall on her as it would. “Lay me by my poor boy now,” she wailed.
A weazen little baby with a heavy head that it could not hold up and two weak staring eyes seemed to be wondering why it had been born.
Unidentified bodies were buried in separate coffins, with four coffins in each grave. The undertaker had numbered each body and listed its characteristics in a register. A corresponding number was written on each coffin, and all four numbers were placed on a marker above the grave.
The Baker's Tale Page 13
