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He liked the school and he enjoyed being the headmaster’s prize pupil. But in the house at the end of Station Street he was less happy. The atmosphere remained strained and he could see how his father was being eaten up with stress and anxiety. Daniel’s proud receipt of the glowing reports that his son brought back from school seemed to be the only times when Adam saw his father happy. Otherwise he was a shadow of the man he’d been in London and it was hard for Adam to recognize him as the same happy-go-lucky person who had challenged the gypsy champion to a boxing match in the market square and come away with ten shillings jingling in his coat pocket.
It was Daniel’s isolated position as negotiator between the union and the owners that was the source of the trouble. As he had promised Adam he would do in the train coming north, he had tried to negotiate solutions to disputes rather than use them as an excuse for escalating conflict. And in the process he had developed a good relationship with Sir John Scarsdale and the managers, but mutual respect had not brought with it significant concessions. The essence of the problem was that Scarsdale was an old pit. In its day it had filled the coffers of Sir John’s father and financed handsome improvements at Scarsdale Hall, including the renovation of the agricultural cottages that Ernest had pointed out to Adam on their walk. But since the turn of the century productivity had steadily fallen. In response the miners had dug deeper and the narrow Oakwell seam had recently yielded good coal, but the greater depth brought more risks and the need for increased expenditure on safety.
Sometimes there were ad hoc union meetings on Friday evenings at Edgar’s house after the week’s money had been divvied up among the butty teams, and, from his bedroom up above, Adam would hear voices rising in anger and accusation. It was usually Whalen Dawes who took the lead. He had a way with words and knew how to play on his audience’s fears, turning Daniel’s long hours closeted with Sir John and the managers against him.
‘You’re cosyin’ up with ’em,’ he’d say, taunting his enemy. ‘That’s what you’re doin’. Scarsdale gives thee a nice glass o’ wine from one o’ his deecanters an’ calls thee a gen’l’man an’ soon you’re eatin’ out o’ ’is ’and like a pussycat, while the likes o’ us are left to suffer, ’ackin out ’is coal in the dusty black darkness, earnin’ next to nowt.’
Daniel would deny the accusation but his words sounded empty and hollow when he had so little to show for his efforts. And when he was absent, Whalen would go further. ‘’E’s not one o’ us; ’e’s a southerner an’ ’e doesna think like we do,’ he would say, watching Edgar all the time out of the corner of his eye to gauge his reaction while the other miners muttered amongst themselves. He was itching to have Daniel removed as checkweighman so that he could be appointed in his place and take control of the local union, but he could not move without Edgar’s support and he wasn’t sure of that yet.
He decided instead to act when the chance came to take on Sir John himself. The deaths of two Scarsdale miners gave him the opportunity. For whatever reason there had been a recent dramatic increase in the number of firedamp explosions in the mine. The cause was in dispute: the management blamed it on the growing depth of the seams being mined, but the men said that the deputies were not taking enough precautions to measure methane levels before work began each day.
This latest disaster had been particularly bad as the exploding gas ignited the coal dust on the walls of the main tunnel in the Hillsborough district, causing a flash fire which trapped a collier and his filler inside their gate, so that by the time the fire truck arrived they had burnt to death.
The whole town turned out for their funerals, walking up the hill to the church in a solemn black line behind the two widows and the men’s brothers, who carried the Miners’ Federation banner unfurled above their heads. The colliery brass band brought up the rear, playing the funeral march. Walking beside his father, Adam felt moved by the silent dignity of the mourners, their steps measured against the muffled beating of the bass drum.
But when they got inside the church they stopped in surprise. Whalen and Rawdon were sitting in Sir John Scarsdale’s pew at the top of the nave, facing the parson in his black vestments, who was walking to and fro in front of the two coffins, which had been set up on trestles in front of the altar. He seemed agitated, apparently at a loss for what to do.
For several tense minutes there was a stand-off, broken only when Hardcastle, the mine manager, went up into the pew behind Whalen and leant forward, telling him in a loud whisper that he had to leave. But Whalen studiously ignored him, staring forward, waiting for the service to begin.
Hardcastle came back down the aisle and spoke to Daniel. ‘You’ve got to get him to move,’ he said.
‘Why? Is Sir John coming?’
‘Yes, he’s outside now with Lady Scarsdale. I sent Atkins back to stop them coming in but I can’t hold them much longer.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Daniel, getting up. ‘But I doubt it’ll do any good.’
Adam watched as his father went up to Whalen in the front pew and tried to get his attention. This time Whalen reacted. ‘Get thy arm off me, you lackey,’ he snapped, shouting out the insult for everyone to hear as he pushed Daniel violently away, causing him to stumble back and half fall on to Miriam, the parson’s daughter, who was sitting across the aisle.
Daniel picked himself up and pulled out his handkerchief to give to Miriam who was clearly distressed by what had happened. He hesitated and then beckoned to Adam to come forward from the back of the church.
‘Can you take her home, Adam? I would but I’m needed here,’ Daniel asked. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Vale. This was the last thing I intended.’
Miriam nodded, accepting the apology, and instinctively Adam offered her his arm for support, flushing deeply when she accepted. As they walked back down the nave, he was intensely aware of her to the exclusion of everyone else around him. He felt the touch of her hand on his arm like electricity and could hear each rustle of her long black dress as they walked. He felt an exultation that made his heart pound, although it shamed him when he remembered it afterwards, thinking of the coffins behind him at the altar and the reason why they were all there. The raised voices and the confusion that had taken over the church were entirely outside his consciousness and he only came back to his senses when they got outside and saw Sir John standing with his wife and son and Atkins the under-manager over near the lychgate.
‘You’re Daniel Raine’s son, aren’t you?’ said Sir John, coming up to them. He was clearly agitated, unable to stand still as he moved his weight from one foot to the other.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Adam.
‘Can you tell me what’s happening in there?’
‘Whalen, Mr Dawes—’
‘Was in our pew,’ said Sir John, interrupting. ‘Yes, I know that. But has he been removed?’
‘No,’ said Adam. ‘My father was trying but it didn’t work.’
‘Oh, this is so ridiculous,’ said Sir John. ‘I only came to show support because I thought it would give the families some comfort. If I had known—’ He broke off, distracted by a sudden flurry of movement at the entrance to the church where several of the pit deputies had appeared, manhandling Whalen out into the churchyard where he stood, dusting himself off, looking delighted with the turn of events.
‘You’re a disgrace, sir,’ said Sir John, going up to him. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Nay, sir, it’s thy treatment o’ us miners that’s the disgrace,’ said Whalen, looking Sir John squarely in the eye. ‘An’ it’s thee that should be ashamed. Come, Rawdon, it’s time to go ’ome,’ he added, looking over at his son who had followed his father out of the church and was looking on with a shocked look on his face.
Adam watched the two of them walk away down the hill. He disliked them both cordially and was appalled by the father’s behaviour and yet he couldn’t help but admire his fearlessness. He turned back to Miriam, who had been standing beside him until a moment before, but found that she was gone and the feeling of disappointment struck him like a sudden and unexpected blow to the heart.
Feelings in the town ran high in the days that followed. The miners were angry with Whalen for using the funerals as a stage for his demonstration, but they also respected his pluck. There was a consensus that something needed to be done even if Whalen had gone the wrong way about it; that they couldn’t allow Hardcastle and his lot to carry on taking advantage of them.
And they were quick to rally round Whalen when the manager announced that he had been suspended from work. Daniel’s appeal to Hardcastle to think again fell on deaf ears and most of the miners downed tools and walked out of the mine when they heard the news. They assembled in a crowd on the football ground, ignoring the steady drizzle as Whalen addressed them from a makeshift platform set up in front of the pavilion. The women were there too, standing further back but just as angry as the men.
‘Thank ye for your support, comrades,’ Whalen shouted. ‘Solidarity’s what’s been missin’ in our union up until now: leavin’ our brethren in Wales to suffer alone while Churchill’s thugs killed ’em with their batons and the black-’earted owners starved ’em to death. We need to stand up and be counted; we need to show Sir John Scarsdale and ’is like that they can’t treat us like animals, payin’ us next to nowt and not carin’ tuppence about our safety, jus’ so they can increase their profits. We’ve got to stop this lyin’ down and lettin’ ’em walk all over us; we’ve got to draw a line and say enough’s enough. We’re men too, just like them, entitled to the same respect as they get – more in fact, cos we work and they don’t.’
The men cheered and raised their hands in a unanimous show of support when Edgar proposed that they refuse to work until Whalen had been reinstated, and then walked back to the town over the muddy fields, sinking their hands deep in their pockets to keep them warm. It was the end of autumn and the last curled brown leaves were blowing down from the black trees, while behind them the wheels of the headstocks stood motionless, wreathed in the misty grey gloom of the early evening. The rain continued to fall steadily and they quickened their pace, needing the solace of alcohol and the warm fire at the King’s Head if they were to maintain their spirit of defiance.
The streets were empty when Adam got off the bus and walked home. Everyone seemed to be inside the pub or the Miners’ Institute on the other side of the green, talking about the strike and Whalen Dawes. And Edgar’s house was deserted too, so Adam revived the fire and set the kettle to boil, lit the lamp, and sat down at the kitchen table with his books spread out in front of him.
The rain was coming down harder now, beating against the window panes so that at first he didn’t hear the knock on the door. And when he opened it, he barely had time to take in the unexpected figure of Mr Vale, the parson, standing on the doorstep before a sudden squall of rain-drenched wind blew them both back into the house. They clung to each other for support for a moment and then both started laughing.
‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said, shutting the door. ‘Edgar’s not here and nor is my father. I don’t know which of them you came to see?’ He was surprised by the parson’s visit. Edgar and his family were non-believers and Adam’s father had no contact with the church other than when he accompanied Adam to the service on Sunday mornings, and he hadn’t even been doing that in recent months, excusing himself on the grounds that he had too much work. As far as Adam knew, Mr Vale had never been to the house before.
‘It was you I was looking for,’ said the parson, smiling as he bent to unfasten the bicycle clips from his trouser legs and took off his cape, which Adam hung on one of the hooks by the door.
‘Me?’
‘Yes, I wanted to thank you for helping my daughter at the funeral. She’s a sensitive soul at the best of times and the occasion was always going to be difficult for her. Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn’t come but she insisted. My wife is an invalid and so Miriam felt that she should come in her stead. And then the scuffle by the altar distressed her. As you may have heard, Mr Dawes did not go willingly and so it would have been even worse for her if you hadn’t come forward to rescue her from the mayhem.’
‘It was the least I could do,’ said Adam. ‘I was pleased to be able to help.’
‘And then she told me that she left without thanking you in person. It’s perhaps understandable as she was frightened that there might be more violence when Mr Dawes was thrown out of the church, but it must have seemed rude to you.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Adam awkwardly. The idea that he had been offended by Miriam when he remembered the few minutes that he had spent with her on his arm as being several of the most wonderful in his life was so absurd that it left him at a temporary loss for words. He covered up his confusion by offering the parson a seat at the table while he busied himself at the fire making tea.
‘You’re learning Latin,’ said the parson who’d been looking at Adam’s books and now picked up his well-thumbed copy of Tacitus’s Annals. ‘We have something in common – I was never happier than when I studied the classics at Oxford. Do you like it?’
‘Yes, very much, although it seems a little useless sometimes—’
‘Useless?’ interrupted the parson sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because it was all so long ago; so far away from where we are now.’
‘Was it? I often think there are real parallels between the Roman Empire and our world. A ruling class that has become decadent, utterly given over to the pursuit of pointless pleasure, supported by a slave population—’
‘We don’t have slaves,’ Adam protested.
‘Technically, no. I agree. But the conditions in which most of the population lives aren’t much better than slavery. In fact I’d say the Roman slaves had a better diet than the poor do in this country.’
‘You sound like Whalen Dawes,’ said Adam and then immediately regretted his words, worrying that the parson would be offended by them, although he showed no signs of being so. In truth Adam was shocked: the parson preached the Christian virtues in his Sunday sermons, but he never talked like this. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘No, I understand what you mean. But I assure you I’m not like Dawes. I believe that society should be more just but that doesn’t mean I believe in using violence to overthrow it as Dawes most certainly does. He wants to start a revolution and, like all revolutionaries, he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.’
‘What do you think will happen?’ asked Adam. He was enthralled by the conversation and didn’t want it to stop. It was the first time in his life that a clever and educated man had spoken to him in this way, treating him as though he was an equal.
‘I don’t know,’ said the parson. ‘I have to say I fear the worst – although whether it will be the Irish or the trades unions or the ridiculous German Kaiser with his dreadnoughts who pushes us over the edge I don’t know.’
‘I saw him,’ said Adam.
‘Did you? When?’
‘At the old king’s funeral. It was only for a minute.’
‘And what did you think?’
‘I thought he seemed wound up, like he could get angry and make some terrible mistake,’ said Adam slowly, groping for the right words. He had thought of the encounter many times since it happened but he still remained unsure what to make of it.
‘He wants every day to be his birthday. That’s what Bismarck said about him and it’s certainly a dangerous trait,’ said the parson, finishing his tea and getting up to go. ‘I’ve enjoyed our talk,’ he added. ‘Perhaps you would like to come to the Parsonage some time. I have some books about Rome that you might like to look at and it would do me good to discuss antiquity with a fellow enthusiast.’
‘I’d love to. I mean I’d like to very much,’ said Adam, trying not to sound too childishly enthusiastic. Not only would he be able to talk about Rome with the parson; he would also be able to see Miriam again and there was nothing he wanted more than that.
At the door they met Daniel coming in. He was excited, telling his news in a rush as he shook the parson’s hand. ‘I persuaded Sir John to reinstate Whalen,’ he said. ‘And not only that – he’ll invest more money in pit safety. There’s new breathing apparatus and protective clothing Hardcastle can buy, and he’s going to give instructions to water down the dust more between shifts. I must say he was very reasonable, although it was hard to get him to change his mind about Dawes …’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said the parson. ‘Sir John’s a good man at heart and he wants to do the right thing. But he’s also a traditionalist, a dyed-in the-wool Tory, and property rights are a religion to him. And Dawes knows that. He’s no fool. He knew exactly what he was doing when he sat in Sir John’s pew – he couldn’t have chosen a better symbol to attack.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Daniel. ‘Is that why you’re here, Mr Vale? I don’t think Dawes’ll do it again, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s got what he wants from the church; the mine’s where he’ll be directing his attention from now on.’
‘No, I agree with you,’ said the parson. ‘I came to thank you for your help. I don’t know how we would have managed without you. And I also wanted to thank your son for helping my daughter when she was distressed. He was very kind and considerate – you should be proud of him.’
‘I am,’ said Daniel warmly. ‘Sometimes I wonder about my future here – Dawes wants my job and he wants a strike and he may well end up getting both, the way we’re going. But as soon as I’m about to get miserable I look at Adam and I feel better. I think he’s going to go far, make a name for himself in this world.’
The parson looked at Daniel carefully for a moment before he answered. ‘I think so too – Adam’s a good lad and he certainly deserves to do well,’ he said. ‘But you must look after yourself as well, Mr Raine. You look pale and careworn, if you don’t mind me saying so. Adam needs you too – you should remember that. Come to church – I should like to see you there.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Daniel, shaking the parson’s hand and watching with Adam as Mr Vale got on his bicycle and rode away up the hill. The rain had stopped but the wind was still blowing and the parson’s billowing cape made him a strange, spectral figure in the twilight.
‘He means well,’ said Daniel. ‘But he doesn’t know what it’s like for us. It’s the same with all the gentlemen – none of them do.’
Daniel’s agreement with Sir John got the men back to work but it didn’t stop the grumbling and it did little to enhance his standing with them either. Below ground, Whalen and his allies harped constantly on the checkweighman’s close relationship with the owner. ‘’E’s spendin’ too much time up at the Hall bein’ wined and dined; ’e’s gettin’ a taste for the high life; ’e’s sellin’ us down the river.’ It didn’t matter that none of this was true; the constant drip of innuendo had a cumulative effect which Daniel was powerless to counteract. And Whalen was preaching to an increasingly receptive audience. All over the country there was a new mood of militancy among the miners. The talk everywhere was of the minimum wage, guaranteed to be paid regardless of fluctuations in profit. It was a principle that the employers could not or would not accept and as the year came to an end it became clear that a national strike was inevitable. The miners came out en masse on 26 February 1912 – a date they soon had cause to regret as it was still cold in the north and they quickly began to miss their free ration of coal. In Scarsdale they took their children’s prams up to the slag heap and picked through the shale in the rain, looking for lumps of coal in the grey waste to wheel home, and the more enterprising sank a pit outside the town, going down in turns to dig for coal by candlelight while the others used a pulley suspended from an old penny farthing bicycle wheel to bring what they could find up to the surface. By mid-March everyone was feeling the pinch and the union opened up a soup kitchen on the green.
But it was hard for Adam to share the general sense of despondency. Throughout the week he was away in Gratton where the school provided meals and the teachers lauded his academic prowess. And on Sundays after church he would go over to the Parsonage and drink a glass of sherry with the parson in his study. Soon this became the highlight of Adam’s week. To begin with they talked about Greece and Rome, looking over the books that Mr Vale had kept from his university days. Adam had always loved books, associating them with the magical childhood world that he had shared with his mother when she read to him in the house in Islington, and he was flattered by the way that the parson seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say when they sat talking on either side of the fire in Mr Vale’s study with the carefully tended lawn glistening silvery green in the winter sunlight outside the bow window.
And later, as they got to know each other better, the parson would talk to him about the present as well as the past. It was a frightening world that they lived in, he said. Everywhere there was conflict – not just between the miners and the mine owners but between all the workers and their employers. There was talk of the trades unions banding together to threaten a general strike, while in London the prison authorities were force-feeding the suffragettes through tubes thrust into their nostrils, and the Ulstermen in Ireland were openly preparing for rebellion. And beyond the shores of England the great powers jostled against each other, defining and redefining their competing spheres of influence.
‘One spark could set it all off,’ said the parson. ‘And once a war has begun they won’t be able to stop it even if they want to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the continent of Europe has become like a house of cards. Once one falls, they all do. The countries are prisoners of their alliances and the armies are too big to call back once they have begun to mobilize. And yet everywhere the rich and powerful go on as if they haven’t a care in the world, spending money like water, living only for pleasure. Perhaps they sense the end is near. I fear for our future, Adam. Truly I do.’
‘What can we do?’
‘We can pray. I don’t think our country has ever stood in greater need of the good Lord and his teachings.’
But these moments of gloom were few and far between at the Parsonage. Generally Adam found Mr Vale to be good company, and there was also the exquisite pleasure of the time he was able to spend with Miriam. She would often come and sit in the corner of the study and listen to her father and Adam talk, supporting her pretty chin on the back of her hand as she stared at each of them in turn, absorbed in what they had to say. Adam wanted to include her in their conversations but she was naturally shy and he desisted when he saw how confused she became when he asked her opinion. But that was because she was in awe of her father; on the few times that they were left alone she was quick with her questions. And she asked them not for form’s sake but because she wanted to know: about London, about the house in Station Street, about the strike and about his disastrous visit to the mine. She laughed when he told her about the ignominious way it had ended but that was because he had deliberately made his unconscious exit in the bottom of the coal tub appear comic, and indeed the experience seemed more absurd than terrible when he was in Miriam’s company, and he laughed too at the memory.
But their laughter got them into trouble, leading as it did to Adam’s first encounter with Miriam’s mother. Adam had never seen her in church for the very good reason that she never went there. As a self-declared permanent invalid, she never left the Parsonage, but she was nevertheless keenly interested in everything that went on in Scarsdale and at the Hall, relying on a network of contacts in both places to keep her informed, periodically rewarding them with small presents from her purse. She knew all about Adam’s rescue of her daughter from the church on the day of Whalen Dawes’s demonstration but she didn’t feel grateful to him like her husband. On the contrary, she saw Adam as a possible emerging threat to her plan to marry Miriam off to a rich, well-connected man. Her own husband was respectable but he had no independent means, and she wished that she had detected his sad lack of worldly ambition before she made the mistake of marrying him. She was not one to waste time on past regrets, but she was determined to use the family’s most precious asset, her daughter’s beauty, to achieve financial security for her old age, and she was certainly not going to allow a penniless young man to get in her way.
‘Miriam, where is your father?’ she asked, not coming into the study, but standing in the doorway, looking at Adam with beady light grey eyes that were utterly unlike the beautiful heavy-lashed garnet-brown eyes of her daughter.
‘He had to go over to the church. One of the bell-ringers needed him. He said he’d be back very soon,’ said Miriam, getting up nervously from her chair. Adam was struck by the dramatic effect that her mother’s appearance had had on her. She was suddenly forced instead of natural, and she seemed to be making excuses when she hadn’t yet been accused of anything. It was Miriam’s curse that she could not be herself with either of her parents. With her father whom she loved she couldn’t think of anything to say, whereas with her mother whom she feared she couldn’t stop talking.
‘This is Adam Raine,’ she said, pointing to Adam who had also got to his feet. ‘His father works at the mine—’
‘I know who he is,’ said Mrs Vale, interrupting coldly. ‘And Mr Raine’s business is with your father, not you, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Miriam.’
It was part of the beauty of Miriam’s face that it vividly reflected the changes in her emotions; she had no art of concealment, and the pain that she felt now in response to her mother’s harsh reprimand and rudeness to their guest was plain to see. Adam was distressed by it; he wanted to ride to her defence but he was clear-headed enough to see that anything he said would only make things worse for Miriam.
‘I am sorry that my husband has caused you this inconvenience,’ Mrs Vale said, turning her attention back to Adam once her daughter had passed by her out of the door. ‘I will speak to him about it.’
And clearly she did because Adam and Miriam were never left alone together after that. But the parson also went out of his way to encourage Adam to continue his Sunday visits and Miriam sometimes still joined them, although this occurred less frequently than before. From all of which Adam concluded that Ernest had been exaggerating a little when he said that it was the parson’s wife who wore the trousers in the marriage, although he had a vested interest of course in wishing that not to be true.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_35265e99-6ead-5120-9115-1bbd03ebbe32)
Early one Saturday morning Adam was shaken awake by Ernest, who was standing fully dressed by the side of the bed.
‘Can you keep a secret?’ he asked.
‘What are you talking about? What kind of secret?’ asked Adam. He was still bleary-eyed from sleep and he wondered if he was still dreaming. It was dark outside the window and the guttering candle in Ernest’s hand was throwing weird shadows on the walls.
‘No, that’s not the way it works,’ said Ernest. ‘You’ve got to tell me you’ll keep it first. You’ve got to promise.’
‘All right,’ said Adam doubtfully. ‘I promise. So what’s the secret?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there,’ said Ernest, laughing. ‘Now get dressed. We’re supposed to be there in ten minutes.’
Everyone in the house was still asleep and they crept down the stairs quietly and closed the door softly behind them. The sun was just beginning to rise in a pink mist over the far hills, dimly illuminating the silvery crystals of the hoar frost hanging on the trees and hedges, and their breath hung white between them in the cold air as they got on their bicycles and went freewheeling down the hill past the station, where they could see the silhouettes of the coal trucks that had been lined up empty and idle on the sidings since the strike began.
The mist was thicker, grey and fog-like in the valley bottom, and they could hardly see a yard in front of them when they dismounted, leaning their bicycles up against the side of the deputies’ office.
Ernest whistled twice and waited a few seconds before whistling again and then after a minute the same signal was echoed back to them.
‘Who is it?’ Adam asked.
‘Luke,’ said a familiar voice, close by but invisible. ‘An’ ’Arry and Davy MacKenzie, an’ I hope you can keep a secret, Adam Raine?’
‘He will,’ said Ernest, answering for Adam. ‘I got him to promise before we left.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Luke, coming forward out of the mist and clapping Adam on the shoulder. He and the two boys with him were smoking cigarettes and the burning ends illuminated their faces. Adam knew them all from playing football.
‘What’s the secret?’ he demanded. He’d been amused and irritated in equal measure by Ernest’s refusal to tell him what was going on, but his frustration was getting the better of him now that he seemed to be the only one of the five of them who didn’t know why they were there.
‘Come on,’ said Luke. ‘You’ll see.’
