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Authors: Thomas Hauser

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“There are deep wounds in her heart,” Murd said.

“I know,” Isabella told her father. “I saw it bleeding.” There was a cruel smile on her face. “If Edwin touched her with his lips, let it poison her.”

Leaning back in his chair, Murd took the letter that Ruby had written for Edwin, opened it, and read it through. “Very nicely worded,” he mused. “Full of what people call love, tenderness, and that sort of thing.”

He handed the letter to Isabella.

“Do with it what you will,” Murd told his daughter.

Isabella laughed a wicked laugh. “It shall be burned.”

If the childless kings and queens in fairy tales had known children like Isabella, they would never have asked the fairies to give them young ones.

As for Ruby . . . Her heart beat rapidly as Murd's servant showed her to the door. Her upper front teeth had cut marks into her lower lip. Her face burned as though it were on fire with embarrassment and humiliation. Alexander Murd and his daughter had taken the purity of Ruby's young heart and converted her love for Edwin into an instrument of torture. Having been brought up in a cocoon of love, being not quite eighteen years old, she did not recognize the web of treachery and lies that had been woven round her.

Once she was on the street, Ruby shed bitter tears. The withered dream, the vision of a life with Edwin that she had cherished, lay crushed in her breast. Her heart was broken. Had she known more of the world, she would have done more to question the truth of Murd's words and the meaning of Edwin's letters. But when a young woman is in love, reason sometimes deserts her.

As a child living on the streets, Ruby had been too young to feel shame or know that there was a better world from which she was barred. Now she felt and knew.

“I have made a fool of myself.”

Could Edwin have played with her affections in such a cruel manner? Her heart said no. But Edwin had not been at the learning center that morning. Murd's coachman had been sent instead to summon her to Murd's home. Edwin had told Murd where to find her. And he had told Murd that he did not wish to see her again.

Ruby had no more power to rid herself of these thoughts than if they were a stone giant rooted in the ground. It was clear now why Isabella hated her. The reason for Isabella's hatred was written in Edwin's hand.

Ruby's love for Edwin had been a dream. And dreams end with waking. It was not that Edwin's love for her had ceased to be. It had never existed. “What a mad woman I should seem to be if the incredible feelings that I have for him were made plain to others,” she thought.

She understood now why Christopher had spoken little to her about her mother. That further tarnished her origins.

Her heart was crushed.

Marie saw the distress in Ruby's face the moment that Ruby returned home to the bakery.

“I must leave,” Ruby told her in a voice choked with emotion. “I cannot tell you why, only that I will be safe and that I believe it is God's plan. I know in my heart that it is the right thing to do. You must trust me. I will always love you.”

She would tell Marie no more.

“I will write to you as soon as possible. Please ask no questions. It is hard enough for me to leave without saying more.”

“Whatever the problem, dear Ruby, tell me what has happened and I will help you.”

“It is not possible for you to help.”

Marie began to cry.

“Please, do not grieve. It is my duty to go. For many years, I have lived with gratitude and devotion in this home. With Heaven as my witness, wherever I go, my love for you will be unimpaired. It is my witness, too, that I am impelled to travel this road. Nothing can turn me from it.”

“I will bring Antonio. Whatever ill fortune has befallen you, he will help us to deal with it.”

“Please do not bring Antonio. I beg of you.”

“I must.”

Ruby's voice rose.

“You cannot. It would only make this moment more painful.”

As evening approached, Ruby went to where she kept her belongings, selected the clothes and other possessions she would bring with her, and put them in two large carry bags. If tears were charms that could safeguard a young woman from sorrow, she would have been happy that night. As it were, she wept like a child.

When the bags were packed, Ruby lay down on the bed that had been a comfort to her for so many years. It was an uneasy bed now.

The night was darker than she had ever known. The sounds of London were hushed, save for the bells in church towers.

The bells sounded twice. An hour later, three times. There were other listeners, no doubt, who were glad to hear them. For some, the bells spoke of life and the optimism of another day. For Ruby, the clang of every iron bell was laden with despair.

Then came a distant glimmer in the sky. The death of night, not the birth of morning. The stars grew pale. The feeble light grew stronger.

Ruby rose from her bed. She had not slept. Perhaps Edwin had been told of her departure and would intercede on her behalf. On that slight and fragile thread, her hope for the future depended.

She dressed for the journey and looked out the window. A carriage stood at the curb.

The hour of dreadful separation had come.

Ruby took a last look round the home that she had loved since the early years of childhood. The little room where she had slept peacefully and dreamed such pleasant dreams. The fireplace, where she had warmed herself while sitting on a stool and learning her lessons with Christopher at her side.

There was a foreboding in her heart that she might never see this place again.

At parting, she embraced Marie at the door.

Marie was crying.

“Don't weep, dear Marie. I go away for my own good. Heaven above us knows that it is so.”

“You are my child.”

“I will be safe. Tell Antonio that I have never held him half so dear as I love him now. And dear Mr. Joy. Tell him that he will be in my heart wherever I go. And know always, dear Marie, that I love you. I have never felt the want of a mother because of your goodness and love.”

Ruby held Marie tight in one last embrace.

“And please, tell those I love that I took my leave calm and happy. I promise that I will write to you. Give me your blessing to take with me.”

“May angels keep you safe and shower blessings upon your head.”

“You will always have my love.”

Murd's coachman and a second man stood by the carriage. Ruby stepped outside the bakery and touched her fingers to the
door—insensible old wood and iron that it was—then pressed her hand against it.

The man accompanying Murd's coachman took Ruby's bags and put them on the roof of the coach beside a large box that was already there.

The street was quiet. The morning that broke upon Ruby's sight did nothing to lessen the depression that she felt. A drizzling rain came slowly down as though it lacked the spirit to pour. The sky was dark and gloomy. A few early churchgoers moved slowly along. Occasionally, the heavy outline of a hackney coach drew nearer through the mist, rolled by, and was lost again in the fog.

As the carriage rode through the streets of London, reason struggled with fantasy in Ruby's head. She looked out of the window, hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon, perhaps a dragon from her childhood running wild, that would change the plan of her departure.

Everything was too real.

“I will keep my word as I pledged it,” Ruby told herself.

She could not bear the thought of perhaps crossing paths with Edwin on the street someday and seeing him with Isabella.

The carriage came to a halt outside of Euston Railway Station.

“I thought I was going to America,” Ruby told Murd's coachman.

“The ship leaves from Liverpool,” he said.

Only the second man in the carriage would accompany her further.

“My name is Charles,” he told Ruby.

Charles waved to a porter, who carried Ruby's bags and the box that had been on top of the carriage to the train. The box, he explained to her, contained provisions for the journey at sea.

They boarded the train and took seats. Twenty minutes later, there was steam, a hiss, a bell, and the train began to move, its wheels clanking and rattling as it left Euston Station.

The building of the railroad was in progress, leaving giant scars across the land. Enormous heaps of earth had been thrown up. Deep trenches cut into the ground. The train travelled through the onrushing landscape, a monster piercing the heart of the countryside with a shriek and roar, belching smoke as it moved through towns. Buildings along the tracks had been undermined and were propped up by great wood beams. Other houses had been knocked down. There were unfinished arches, a chaos of scaffolding.

Ruby was frightened by the ugliness of it all. Was this part of Edwin's world?

She fell asleep several times, but never for more than an hour. There were two connecting carriage rides and two more trains. She cried often, feeling better after she had but not by much.

Several times when the train stopped or the carriage changed horses, Ruby thought of returning to London. More than once, while occupied with these thoughts, she imagined a resemblance to Edwin in men who were walking nearby. Her heart would beat fast. But they were not Edwin.

She travelled on. Night came. Ruby was exhausted when she and Charles arrived in Liverpool early the following morning.

Murd had instructed his man to keep Ruby within his sight at all times until she was on the ship. Charles was there to ensure her departure more than to assist her.

At the docks, smoke poured from the huge red funnel of a great ship, giving promise of serious intentions. Ruby and Charles threaded their way through the noise and bustle. One party of men was carrying fresh provisions to fill the icehouses on
the ship. Others were coiling ropes. There seemed to be nothing going on anywhere or in any mind other than preparation for the voyage.

Ruby realized that she did not know where in America she was going.

“To Boston,” Charles told her.

Porters looking like so many Atlases were carrying the luggage of the wealthier-looking passengers. Charles engaged the services of one to carry Ruby's load. He made no more of her box and bags than an elephant would have made of a maharaja on its back. He lifted Ruby's belongings and moved along as if he could go faster with them than without.

Charles followed her every step of the way. He presented Ruby's ticket at a gate, and she was directed to an area where a mass of poorly dressed men and women with children and boxes and bags were standing.

“I leave you now,” Charles said. “Do not forget these.”

He handed Ruby a pouch with gold coins.

“These will have value in America. I believe that they were promised to you.”

A signal was given, and the mob moved forward. Ruby showed her ticket. Her name was compared to those on a registry. She was given a number—“27”—and instructed to move with the others.

Dozens of seamen—well-muscled men, browned and hardened by their exposure to weather—were in view.

“All guns, gunpowder, knives, and other weapons must be turned over to the captain,” one of the seaman called out again and again. “They will be returned to you upon disembarking in America.”

Ruby struggled with her bags and box.

“We're going across,” one of the seamen said, as if the ship were a ferry crossing the Thames.

On board the ship, Ruby was directed down a ladder and shown to a bunk—“27”—not much larger than her bed at home had been. It was to be shared with a mother and two young children. People swarmed around her, stumbling over each other amidst confusion.

This was steerage, the lowest deck and cheapest class of ticket on the ship. Ruby had not known of cabins and steerage before.

A bell sounded. Ruby returned with some of the others to the main deck. Small boats pulled the vessel away from the dock. Like a giant receiving the breath of life, the huge ship throbbed and its great wheels turned. Gathering speed, it moved away from the harbour.

The shoreline of England grew more distant. Ruby stared longingly at it until her tear-filled eyes were as sore as her heart. The desolate feeling within her deepened and widened. Soon, much too soon, there was nothing to be seen but water.

She felt now the full weight of the change upon her life and all that she had lost. Love, family, friendship, and home were shattered.

“Where am I going? What have I done?”

She wished that she could tell the crew to stop the ship, turn it around, and return to England. All that she had known and loved was gone.

Her destiny lay in an unknown land far beyond the horizon.

Book 3

CHAPTER
7

E
dwin's train left Euston Railway Station at eleven o'clock on Friday morning. For most of the day, it rolled through the English countryside, booming into the darkness of a tunnel now and then before bursting out into sunny meadows and fields where sheep were grazing.

There were several stops in cities and another train that rumbled through woods, across a river where a mill was turning, down into the earth again, and up once more into the sunshine where villages clustered and church steeples rose.

All the while, Edwin thought of Ruby.

“She has made a change within me. It was such a grand sensation when she put her arm through mine. More than anything, I would like that feeling again.”

As the train neared its final stop, the landscape grew coarse. Mounds of brambles and weeds were heaped together. In the distance, a town lay shrouded in a dark haze. At least, Edwin
surmised the existence of a town because of the sullen blotch upon the horizon.

The train advanced closer to the dismal sight. Stagnant pools where nothing green could live sweltered by the rails. Coal dust darkened shrunken leaves. There was little grass, nor had any bud fulfilled its promise. A great amount of iron lay about, twisted into various shapes. Axles, wedges, cogs, wheels, cranks, all rusting with age. Then huge whirling machines, spinning and writhing like tortured creatures, clanking their iron chains and screeching as though in torment.

The train came to a halt in the shadow of a large brick building. A gloomy spirit fell upon Edwin. Dark smoke poured out of tall chimneys on every side, fouling the air and obscuring the setting sun with a dense black cloud.

Man has extracted materials from the earth since the beginning of civilization. The earliest of these were used to make tools and weapons. The ancient Egyptians mined turquoise, copper, and gold for ornamentation. Succeeding empires advanced the means of securing whatever of value lay beneath the surface.

Colliery, or coal mining as it is also known, is as old as history. Early man gathered coal for fire. The Romans and Chinese used coal before Christ was born.

Prior to the 1800s, coal was mined in large measure from visible outcrops or deposits close to the surface of the earth. Pits shaped like upside down bells were carved into the ground with no roof support of any kind. These bell pits were as much as two hundred fifty feet deep. When one collapsed, it opened the surrounding terrain for more mining.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, a revolution in industrial processes led to an increase in the use of steam power and an exponential increase in the demand for coal. At the same time, shaft mining became the most common form of mining in England. Miners learned to use timber to support shaft walls and the roofs of tunnels, which enabled them to dig deeper into the earth and burrow further away from the shaft. Then steam pumps became more sophisticated in removing water that seeped into tunnels, allowing shafts to extend even further into the ground.

By 1850, more than two hundred thousand English men, women, and children laboured in mines.

Colliery has made some people rich. It has cost many more their lives. A shaft is dug into the ground, often a quarter of a mile deep. Tunnels supported by timber brattice extend a hundred yards or more away from the shaft. The pits are mined round the clock by workers, who labour in shifts as long as twelve hours. They see as much of the sun as a man might hope for were he placed in a coffin.

A man's life is measured in years. For coal miners, each birthday warns of passing another marker that stands between them and the grave. The boys have a feeling of immortality. They view going into the mines as a rite of passage to becoming a man. By the time they are old enough to understand fully what is involved, they are locked into their mean existence.

The mine tunnels are places of slow torture, dark narrow ovens filled with black soot in summer and clammy cold in winter. The miners crawl upon hands and knees, their bodies touching the roof and walls.

Rats are everywhere.

The shadow of death is omnipresent. Most of the men die prematurely from diseases of the lungs and heart or lose the strength
that they rely upon for their livelihood as a consequence of the debilitating wear and tear that their bodies endure.

The noise of digging and blasting is constant in their claustrophobic underground world. More ominous are the everyday warning sounds of strata shifting, rocks falling, roof timber cracking, and water dripping. A miner grows accustomed to these sounds or is broken by them.

Rock falls from collapsing tunnels and the rush of water if an underground stream breaches a tunnel wall are ever present threats. Poisonous and flammable gasses accumulate in air pockets within coal deposits. If one of these foul pockets is penetrated, the release of gas can lead to death by suffocation.

The miners carry Davy lamps in the tunnels. The flame is encased beneath an iron gauze top knit tightly enough to prevent it from passing through the mesh. If the flame in a Davy lamp enlarges or turns blue, it is a danger signal that gas is in the air.

But the light that the Davy lamps emit is poor. The men can make more money by working with a full light than they can with the gauze tops fastened on. Sometimes they open their lamps underground. If gas is present, the result can be a catastrophic explosion.

Not a week passes without men dying in English mines. Women and children too.

In 1838, a stream overflowed into a mine shaft after a violent thunderstorm in Silkstone in northern England. Fifteen boys between the ages of nine and twelve and eleven girls between the ages of eight and sixteen were killed. In the aftermath of the disaster, Queen Victoria ordered an inquiry. A royal commission headed by Lord Anthony Ashley was formed. Lord Ashley's study broadened into an investigation of overall conditions in the mines. His final report led to the passage by Parliament of the Mines Act of 1842, which prohibits boys under the age of ten and
all women from working underground in mines. Five years later, the Ten Hours Bill, which limits the length of time that women and children can work to ten hours a day, was enacted into law.

There are four inspectors in all of England charged with enforcing the Mines Act. It is largely ignored.

Julian White, who oversaw Murd's mining operations in Lancashire, was at the station to meet Edwin when the train arrived. He was a well-fed man of medium height, about forty years of age with a ruddy complexion and thinning hair.

“I have instructions from Mr. Murd to show you a bit of the business,” White said as he escorted Edwin to an inn nearby. “You will be in Lancashire until Wednesday. Make yourself comfortable tonight. I will come for you at seven o'clock tomorrow morning.”

The inn that Edwin was lodged in had seen better days. He ordered chicken for dinner. The bird's tendons and ligaments extended into its breast as a gnarled tree might strike roots into the earth. Its thighs were hard enough to warrant the conclusion that the bird had spent the better part of its life in rigorous exercise.

Julian White returned on Saturday morning and walked with Edwin to the mine site. There, Edwin was introduced to the overseer, a man named Jonathan Hunt.

Hunt had the responsibility of giving the miners their work orders each day. He was hard-featured and stocky with the stubble of a coarse beard on his chin. Hunt talked as he, White, and Edwin walked.

“The pit here is about eleven hundred feet deep. At present, we are mining a seam of coal that extends westward from the shaft at an average of five feet thick.”

The young men at work at the mine site looked strong and able. The older men seemed worn out. A heavy burden was written on their faces, and their bodies were bent as if by the weight of a great trouble. The women were pale and weary. The children had no childhood in their eyes.

“The hewers work with picks below the surface,” Hunt explained, continuing Edwin's education. “The miners who push the wagons underground are called putters. Hurriers pull the wagons. Each tunnel is divided into sections by canvas flaps that are lifted and lowered to regulate the flow of air. The men who lift and lower the flaps are called trappers.”

“It is a dangerous business,” the overseer added. “Live and you learn. Nearly die, and you learn quicker.”

The following day, Sunday, was a day of rest in the mines. Edwin thought of going to church, but decided that he could commune with the Almighty just as well while walking about the town.

The inn was on a dismal street. A gaunt tree with a blackened trunk and leaves that rattled rather than rustled when a breeze filtered through them stood outside the door. Farther down the street, a long row of mean houses with windows patched with paper told of the poverty there.

The air was tainted and offensive. The entire town seemed unhealthy for want of clean air. Edwin could only wonder what the air in the mines was like. There was coal dust on everything. It was May, but not a single flower was in sight.

“Today, I was to have spent the entire day with Ruby,” Edwin ruefully thought.

He imagined Ruby receiving his letter at the learning center the previous morning.

“She knows the reason for my absence and understands my eagerness to see her again.”

Monday morning, by prearrangement, Edwin went to Julian White's office. There were two rooms and a staff consisting of a clerk and secretary, each polite but not particularly friendly.

When Edwin was at the mine site on Saturday, he had felt out of place with his London clothes. He arrived at White's office without a jacket and neckwear.

White talked a bit about how coal was transported from the Lancashire mine to various parts of England. Then Edwin expressed the desire to revisit the mine site and speak with some of the miners.

White seemed reluctant to pursue it.

“Mr. Murd tells me that you have a way with people. But too much familiarity breeds disrespect for authority.”

Edwin repeated his request, suggesting that he would go alone if White chose not to go with him. Faced with that alternative, White agreed to accompany him on the visit.

At the mine site, Edwin watched as coal was pulled up the shaft in large open containers to the mouth of the pit. The dust in the air was a thick constant presence. At five o'clock, there was a change in shifts. Hundreds of men came out of the earth. More than a few women and children rose from the underground with them.

One of the men made eye contact with Edwin, perhaps wondering who this young man was. His face was horribly scarred.

White reached out a hand as if to gently restrain Edwin.

Edwin ignored him.

“What happened?” he asked the miner.

“Six months ago, some rocks fell. I could not see what was in front of me, so I lifted the top off my lamp. And pheuww! There was an explosion. I was lucky,” the man continued. “There was not much gas, just a small pocket. It scorched my face, and the
skin peeled off. These things happen. I have been careless many times. All of us are.”

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