The Quality of Mercy

32



Michael had to find explanations for the summons to Wingfield and for this second visit and the absence from work it would entail. Lord Spenton was thinking of having side walls built on the handball court, he told his father, and this would mean converting to the English game, which was more complicated, as the ball could be bounced from the side walls as well as the front wall, and four players could take part. As this year’s colliery champion, he had been asked to inquire into general opinion on the matter and make a report to his lordship. He was not used to lying and went too much into detail, but his father showed no sign of doubting the matter. In midmorning on the appointed day he set off to walk the two miles or so of rising ground to Wingfield.

Spenton himself was not present at the meeting. He had left instructions with Roland Bourne, who dictated the terms to the notary. Then, while the copy was being made, the steward quit the room on other business, leaving Michael and the notary alone together.

For a while there was no sound but the scratching of the pen. Michael sat and waited, still in a state of only half belief that this was really happening. He had said nothing to anybody about the agreement reached with Lord Spenton, wanting it to come to his father as a complete surprise.

His copying still not quite finished, Bathgate laid down his pen, glanced up, met Michael’s eye, glanced away again, cleared his throat with a rasping sound. “Young man,” he said, “you have been fortunate, but it is within my power to make you more fortunate yet.”

Taken by surprise at this announcement, Michael made no immediate reply. He saw the notary take up his pen again and heard him say, in the same solemn and measured tones, “I am one who believes in helping a young person to fulfill his promise. I am prepared to buy this piece of land from you, as a private transaction between us, you understand. I can offer you double the price you have paid. That is to say, double the price recorded here, which is stated as received, but which in fact has not been paid, since no sum of money has actually passed out of your possession. I will give you one hundred guineas, cash in hand.”

“A want to give the land to my father,” Michael said, and once more encountered the gaze of the notary, which had grown steadier and sharper in the making of the offer.

“He will not get much of a living from such a small plot.” Bathgate glanced down at the paper before him. “Less than three acres. Nothing prevents you from selling. It is leasehold, the period of ownership is stated, the date of reversion is stated, but the document contains no restriction on your right to dispose of the property as you see fit. With a hundred guineas you could quit the mine for good—no more toiling in the dark, sweating your life away. You are a likely fellow, I can see that. You could set up in some business, manufacturing say—there are excellent opportunities in the pottery trade. Or you could set up a shop or buy a share in a slaving venture—that is the thing nowadays, you acquire a share in a cargo of Africans, you buy sugar and rum with the proceeds of the sale, and you make a handsome profit on the London Exchange when your ship returns. You increase your investment on each voyage and in a few years you find yourself a rich man. I have seen it happen to others.”

“A canna sell the land, sir, it is not truly mine.”

“How, not truly yours? We are presently engaged in drawing up a deed that will convey it to you.”

“No, a mean … If a had thowt to make a profit from the first, that would be different. Sellin’ it now would be like sellin’ my own father, it is him that wants it.” He could see no sign of understanding on the notary’s face. “Tha could offer me double again an’ a wouldna sell it,” he said more loudly, and in a tone more emphatic.

“I see.” Bathgate lowered his head and resumed his copying, and for some minutes there was again only the scratching of the pen to be heard. Michael had not really believed that the notary was concerned to give him a helping hand. But what came now made him less sure of this. Bathgate finished his task, laid the documents side by side on the desk and said, “Mr. Bourne will take these to Lord Spenton for his signature, then he will return to see you make your mark and to witness the signature. I shall sign as second witness. You will not sell to me, well and good. I made you an offer in the line of business. Let me give you a piece of advice. Sell to nobody, nobody at all. I have reason to think, between you and me, that there is interest in that land, and who has a piece of it, however small, will be likely to profit very considerably.”

“A dinna see what tha means, sir.”

The notary paused again, remembering the arrogant manner of the man who had come to question him. Close questions about rights of access, the title to the line of the shore. Only thoughts of making a way through could lead a man to visit a notary with questions of that kind.

“They may be purposing to take the coal that way,” he said. “Here in the County of Durham, who owns the land where the wagons pass can prosper greatly on the wayleave.”

“What is it, a wayleave? Tha means a charge for the passin’ of the coal?”

“When it is over private ground, yes. And when it is a question of saving costs for the owner of the mine or the lessees, the charge can be high. I have a client, I do not mention his name, who receives two thousand five hundred pounds a year, without lifting a finger, for a wayleave over Wickley Moor, a pittance of ground scarcely above two hundred yards in extent. Say nothing of this to anyone, if you know what is in your interest. Of course, I may be wrong—time will tell. But if there is benefit, I would rather see it go to a local man than some interloper from London who puts on airs and thinks he is superior.”

Michael uttered his thanks for the information, which he saw was well meant, and promised to keep it in mind. But nothing in the notary’s words, whose significance in any case he had not yet fully grasped, caused the slightest wavering in his determination to make a gift of the land to his father. When, some time later, he issued from Wingfield with the deed in his hands, this determination was as strong as ever.

His father had left for work that day at the usual hour. These summer mornings the world was alive with birdsong; there were clumps of meadowsweet in the fields, growing tall where the hedges gave protection.

It was in this season that Bordon experienced the bitterness of servitude most keenly. The promise of the day, the sense of strengthening light, the openness of the countryside around him—everything he saw and felt brought home to him the knowledge of his subjection, the knowledge that he would soon be thrust down into darkness. He minded less in the winter, going from the dark to the dark. But at this time of the year the light was clear as he reached the mine, as he bound his limbs in the loops of rope and took a grip on David and heard the banksman shout that all was clear for the descent. It was the world of light he was leaving; it would be a different light he was drawn up to at the end of his stint, a light that had spent its promise, as he had spent his strength in the hours of hacking out the coal in the cramped space of the seam, with no light but the candle flame for guide.

At the time that his eldest son was listening to the scratch of the notary’s pen, about halfway through the shift—though he did not go by any measurement of time, only by the amount of coal he had hewed out—he was on his knees, striking with a short-handled pick at the glinting face of the coal. The putter and his mate were working at his back; they were at a distance from him, dragging the loaded corves along the gallery toward the pit bottom.

He was striking with short, rapid strokes to free the coal from its bedding of slate. The cracking sounds of impact prevented him from hearing the first signals of strain from the timbers overhead, strangely like a man bringing up phlegm from his throat, preparatory to spitting. Had he heard them he would have known what they meant; he would have downed tools and crawled away from the face and might perhaps have saved himself. By the time he heard the roar of collapse, it was too late. The pillar of coal that had been left to support the roof buckled sideways toward him, the heavy timbers and the mass of stone they had held back fell down on him and crushed his back and legs and covered his body.

He was facedown, powerless to make the smallest movement. He felt no pain at first, only a paralyzing constriction of the chest and a sense of terrible harm done to him. The weight of the rock pinned his body down and kept his face pressed close to the ground, but some chance shift in the fall had spared his head and left a space below his mouth and chin, and so granted him the cruel respite of some minutes more of consciousness and growing pain. Into this bowl his blood dripped heavily. He could hear the splash of it. He could see the shine of the beck. Someone was throwing pebbles into the water, trying to prevent his boat from winning.