The Baker's Tale (19 page)

Ruby had enough of good looks that men were almost always pleasant to her. Her kind manner encouraged similar treatment. The servant staff on the ship to England accorded her additional deference because of her status as a cabin passenger.

The food in cabin class was well prepared and served in a private dining room. An area of the deck was reserved for fresh air games. Backgammon, chess, and cards—all foreign to her—were played in the salon.

There are very few emigrants from America to England. The steerage area was filled mostly with cargo. She visited the few passengers lodged amidst the crates and brought them small favors from cabin service from time to time.

At night, Ruby stood on the ship's deck and gazed at the moon and stars. The stars rose in immeasurable space, infinite in their number. She thought often of the circumstances under which she had last travelled across the ocean. The stars had different meaning to her now.

She knew that Marie and I would be joyous to see her. Her confidence was growing with regard to Edwin.

What was meant to be would be. And she was going home.

Then there was a change in the weather.

It was late afternoon near sunset. The wind and the waves were restless. There was a murky confusion of flying clouds, tossed up into thick heaps. Seasoned seamen shook their heads and looked uneasily about.

“That's a remarkable sky,” one of them said. “I don't remember one like it. There will be mischief tonight.”

Brooding black clouds spread a sullen darkness until the sky was a heavy colour. The night grew darker. Lightning flashed and quivered. The ceiling of the world could not have been more dark if the sun, moon, and stars had fallen from the Heavens.

The wind grew more angry. Large drops of rain began to fall as if each drop were a leaden bead. The wind sent the rain slanting down at strange angles. For a moment, it would die away and Ruby could delude herself into believing that it had laid itself to rest. Then she heard the wind growling again, gathering strength as huge waves crashed against the ship.

The thunder rolled louder, as though through the halls of an ancient temple in the sky. The lightning became fiercer and more dazzling. Rain poured down like Heaven's wrath.

The ship moved forward gallantly against the elements, its tall masts trembling. Onward it surged, high now upon the curling billows, now low in the hollows of the sea as though hiding for a moment from the fury of the storm.

Nature raged against the ship's boldness. Angry waves rose up their hoary heads, dashing themselves against the vessel. The rolling of the ship became more severe. Had the ship ever taken a roll before like the one just passed? Worse still, like the one that is coming? Can it bear the mass of water that it is taking on board, beating at the closed windows and doors?

Gusting rain poured down like showers of steel. Undulating hills changed to valleys. Undulating valleys lifted up to hills. Masses of water shivered and shook with a booming sound.

Imagine a human face upon a vessel's prow with a thousand monstrous warriors bent upon driving it back, smashing
it between the eyes whenever it attempts to advance an inch. Imagine the ship with every artery of its huge body swollen and bursting under this maltreatment, struggling to stay afloat or die. Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating, all in furious array. Picture the sky, dark and wild, the clouds in fearful sympathy with the waves, the loud hoarse shouts of seamen, the rush of water through every opening, and the striking of the heavy sea upon the deck.

The ship was at the mercy of the storm, and the storm had no mercy. There was such whirl and tumult that nature itself seemed mad. The ship spun round and round, then down onto its side with its masts dipping into the waves. Springing up, it rolled over onto the other side until the sea struck again with the roar of a thousand cannons and hurled it upright.

The vessel staggered and shivered as though stunned. Every plank groaned. Every nail shrieked. It was as though an angry god had summoned up monsters beyond imagination from the deep in a violent effort to beat the ship down. The air was thick with phantoms, spirits, leaping, flying, raging, howling, thrashing with knotted whips and chains.

In one dreadful moment, the waves struck with violence enough to send a heavy wood beam through the side of the ship where Ruby's quarters lay. There was grinding and crashing and a rushing in of water. Ruby was flung against the cabin wall. The ship tilted. Another wave gushed in and out, taking Ruby with it.

She screamed in horror . . . Falling . . . Falling . . . Sucked into the ocean . . . More waves . . . She gasped desperately to breathe . . . There was another massive wave.

The ship somehow was still upright. But it was moving away.

A useless cry of terror escaped Ruby's lips. She struggled in
mortal combat with the sea to keep her head above the dark raging water.

She fell beneath the waves. Now she was above them, beating at the water with her hands. Looking round with desperate eyes, she saw a long dark spar beside her. A piece of wood torn loose by the collision between the ship and the sea. She grasped on to the fragment and clung to it for life.

The sea has no appreciation of good and evil. It treats them both the same.

The rain diminished. The thunder died away. The storm gave way to calm.

Hours passed. Ruby did not know how many. She knew only that the struggle of her life was almost done. The wooden spar, soaked through with water, was beginning to sink, taking with it her last hope of survival.

She thought of Christopher and how bravely he had faced death. She thought of Marie and all the others she had loved.

Most of all, she thought of Edwin.

She would never look upon his face or hear his voice again.

There would be no plot of land in a churchyard, where those who loved her could mourn.

The water murmured an invitation to rest. There was a final splash and struggle. Ruby could fight no more. The voyage home that had begun with so much hope was ending.

The sea closed over Ruby's head. The ocean floor would be her grave.

The storm had passed. The sun had come up. The sea was calm. Edwin stood on the deck of the ship that was carrying him to America.

The crew had been instructed to keep an eye out for lifeboats. Edwin was flanked by two seamen. They were looking over the water. Edwin thought he saw a body bobbing up and down.

One of the seamen said it was not so. The other was unsure and called for a pair of field glasses. Through the lenses, he saw a woman amidst the waves.

The ship's own lifeboats were useless. They had been crushed like walnut shells by the blows of the sea.

The two seamen volunteered to go down on ropes into the ocean.

“You risk your lives,” the captain told them.

They were heroes, both.

Men ran with long thick ropes. A rope was tied round each seaman's waist, another round the upper portion of his chest. The seamen leaped into the ocean, trusting in those who held the twined fiber. Striving valiantly, they swam toward the drowning figure.

Under it went, then back to the surface.

The two seamen were close enough now to know that it was a woman. With a few more vigorous strokes, they would reach her.

The woman's final struggle agitated the rippling water. Slowly, she disappeared from view.

The spot where she went under was undistinguishable from all that had surrounded her.

One of the seamen dove beneath the surface and groped for her in the dark. Feeling her within his grasp, he clasped her tight. The men on board pulled hard on the ropes and hauled them in like fish.

The woman was laid out flat on the ship's hard wooden deck.

Edwin stared at the pale limp form, then fell to his knees in the recognition. His tears fell upon Ruby's face, mingling with water from the sea.

He kissed Ruby's cold wet lips.

“I beg of you, God. Spare her life. Grant me this wish, and I will hold you beside her in my heart for eternity.”

A seaman felt for Ruby's pulse.

“There is life in her,” he said.

Hope surged in Edwin's breast. He put his lips to Ruby's, trying desperately to breathe life into her.

She lay still.

He breathed more.

A thin stream of seawater trickled from Ruby's mouth . . . Her chest expanded.

“She is breathing,” one of the seamen said.

Edwin smoothed the hair away from Ruby's forehead. His shadow fell upon her like the light of a loving sun.

Ruby felt the touch of a trembling hand, opened her eyes, and saw a face between her and the sky. The face of a man, young and handsome, shaded by rich dark hair. A face that she had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, from the day that she first saw it.

Edwin gazed lovingly down upon her.

“I have died and gone to Heaven,” Ruby Spriggs said.

Book 4

CHAPTER
13

I
t did not take long for Ruby to come to her senses after being rescued from the sea. Most of us hope to enter Heaven someday. But she was pleased to find that she was still of this world and joyful beyond measure to be with Edwin.

Several days passed before their ship arrived in Boston. During that time, they shared every detail of what had happened to tear them apart and what had transpired during their separation.

“It was foolish of me to do what I did,” Ruby acknowledged.

“Foolish, but very brave.”

Edwin sat close by her side.

“Promise that you will never leave me again,” he said.

“I would not lose you again for all the treasures of the world.”

Edwin wrote a letter to Octavius Joy while they were on board ship, telling him that Ruby was safe following a harrowing storm and that they would return soon to England. Ruby wrote a similar letter to Marie. On the day that they arrived in Boston, they
took both letters to the Collins Steamship Office for posting to London.

They went next to the Boston Book Emporium, where Abraham Hart greeted them with astonishment.

“I had feared that I would never see you again,” he told Ruby. “This reunion is sooner than I could have hoped for. Indeed, it has come so swiftly that there has been little time for hoping.”

Edwin told Abraham how pleased he was to meet him.

“You have done us many acts of kindness that can never be fully repaid.”

“No payment is necessary,” Abraham answered. “The reward one receives for kindness is that one enjoys being kind.”

Later, Ruby and Edwin were alone. The bright sun was nearing the end of its day. The colours of twilight were no less beautiful but of a quieter tint than those that had come before.

They walked hand in hand. All seemed right with the world.

Edwin held Ruby's hand more tightly. Then he dropped to one knee.

“Dear Ruby, I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. No one could make me happier than you make me.”

Her heart beat rapidly. She had hoped from the start that it would come to this.

“I would like very much for us to spend our lives together. Will you marry me?”

Tears of joy flowed from Ruby's eyes. And from her full young heart came her reply: “You know I will.”

The church where they were married had a cracked stone floor and old oak roof. Leaves of ivy tapped gently at the windows, leaving the pews in tempting shade.

The hand of Providence was in their union. There could have been no clearer signal from the Almighty Creator that He had
bestowed his blessing upon them than the manner in which Ruby was saved from the sea.

The sun was shining through the stained glass window of the church when they said their wedding vows. The bride was given away by Abraham Hart. When Ruby and Edwin stood before the altar and the preacher asked, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” Abraham answered in the same clear voice that Ruby had first heard at Lucretia Mott's town meeting.

Then came the vows.

“This day, I take the happiest and best step of my life . . . I will cherish you with a love and trust that do not die . . . I would not forsake your hand in marriage for any other blessing that life can offer . . . We may grow rich. God willing, we will grow old. But rich or poor, old or young, we shall be the same to each other.”

None of us has a full understanding of where we are in the whirling wheel of life until some marked stop brings a clear perception to us. This was such a day. Ruby had left everything she loved and crossed the ocean into the unknown, believing that it would help Edwin. Now she would be returning home as Edwin's wife and with greater joy than if he were the stateliest lord in England.

When the ceremony was over, Ruby could not conceal her joy.

“I am Edwin's bride,” she all but shouted.

Abraham swore that the old church bells rang more cheerfully that day than ever before.

After her previous experience at sea, Ruby would have preferred to return to England by horse-drawn carriage. But the path home lay through the ocean, so she consented to board a ship again.

It was a splendid New England autumn with brightly coloured leaves on the day that she and Edwin left Boston. Abraham accompanied them to the pier.

“I hope that this is not the last time we meet,” Edwin said in parting. “But if it is, please know that you will always have our gratitude and affection.”

“I am extremely fond of your wife,” Abraham responded. “It comforts me to know that she will be with someone who loves her as she deserves. Your happiness will be mine.”

Then Abraham turned to Ruby.

“Though you be far away, I shall think of you every day. When I look upon Edwin, for as short a time as I have known him, I know in my heart that, were the decision mine, I would have chosen him to be your husband.”

Ruby had never shown as much interest in the state of the weather as she did on board the ship to England. But the voyage was marked by calm seas and a gentle favouring wind. With Edwin beside her, she felt as though she were guarded by the entire British navy.

There was a grandeur in the stately ship's motion as it slashed nobly through the sea. A bright sun lit its course by day. The reflection of the moon on the water at night seemed a map to home.

Then came a crisp fair morning. Ruby and Edwin would never forget the day. There was a cloudless sky and bracing air. The water danced and sparkled round the great ship's hull, full of motion and free. Before them lay the most glorious of sights. A speck of land glittering in the sun. Home. The shores of England.

There was a train ride to London.

A joyous reunion.

I am not ashamed to say that I wept to see them.

Soon after, Octavius Joy hosted a wedding party in their honour. The cake glistened with frosted sugar and was garnished with a little Cupid under a barley-sugar arch. Mr. Joy made a toast in which he told of knowing Ruby since the age of three. He then
chided her lovingly for her flight from London, while conceding, “One does not always find an old head upon young shoulders.”

Ruby looked more of a woman than when she had gone away. The joy in her eyes made her face more lovely than ever.

“I have never seen you as beautiful as you are now,” I told her.

“I have never been so happy.”

At the end of the party, Marie and Ruby embraced.

“I left you once,” Ruby told her. “Now I leave you again for another home.”

“But this time, I am happy,” Marie said. “With your marriage to Edwin, my own future is brighter than it was before. Someday, when your hair is grey, you will understand.”

Then Marie embraced Edwin.

“For many years, I have had a kind and loving daughter. Now I also have a son.”

When the first emotions of their new life had passed, Ruby and Edwin understood even more fully how fortunate they were. The richest men in England would have been proud to call Ruby their wife, and would have praised fate had a man such as Edwin married their daughter.

Edwin began work with Octavius Joy as the administrator of his charitable ventures. Mr. Joy placed great confidence in him, and Edwin was faithful to his trust. He brought all of the energy and determination that were natural to his character to the task.

With Edwin's help, a second learning center opened in London. Like the first, it encouraged women, as well as men, to learn to read and write.

Octavius Joy also embarked upon a plan to train teachers.

“It is necessary,” he said. “Any man who has proven his unfitness for any other occupation is free, without examination or qualification, to open a school. That must change.”

Edwin marveled often on how fate had moved him from being a protégé of Alexander Murd to a protégé of Octavius Joy.

As for Murd's fate, reality took a wolfish turn.

Octavius Joy had spoken with men of influence in the government. He was on good terms with them and played the game well.

Government officials, elected and appointed, respond to the public will when forced to do so. The undeniable fact that women and children had died while working illegally underground in the Lancashire mine led to expressions of public outrage that weighed more heavily than Murd's influence. Justice was soon tracking him with a strong scent and steady tread.

The prison gates are heavy, and the keys that turn them are strong. Men who had conspired illegally with Murd found the thought of such a key turning against them to be exceedingly unpleasant. One by one, they unburdened themselves to the authorities in the hope of lenient treatment.

Harold Plepman, who had come to Murd's office seeking a greater bribe, confessed to his wrongdoing. That opened the door to more confessions by purchasing agents.

A committee was established by Parliament to investigate the Lancashire mine disaster. That led the authorities to coroner Samuel Shaw, who also turned on Murd.

Murd himself was called to testify before the Parliamentary committee. Then he was summoned to a new coroner's inquest in Lancashire.

It was December and very cold when Murd arrived in the mining town. Snow had fallen, but was grey with soot before it touched the ground.

Murd intended to establish himself at the inquest as a man of substance. He was attired in a fine suit with leather boots,
polished. The boots cost more than a miner would earn for a full month's work.

The inquest room was crowded with miners.

“You have no heart,” one of them shouted out when Murd entered.

“The facts established by Doctor William Harvey make it clear that I have a heart,” Murd arrogantly responded. “The circulation of the blood cannot be carried on without one.”

“We do not have the same fancy airs and book learning as you. But you will hear what we have to say.”

“I will not flatter you with my attention. Nothing could be further from my thoughts.”

“You call yourself a gentleman, but you are nothing of the kind.”

“I am a man of business, not a priest.”

Murd was not sorry for anything that he had done. The operation of his mines was satisfactorily settled in his mind. He was sorry only because consequences of a troubling kind were now likely at hand.

The solicitor for the Parliamentary committee aggressively questioned Murd. So did the coroner.

“You seem to be prejudged against me,” Murd told the coroner.

“I have not stated an opinion. I have asked a question. I will base my opinion on what you tell me.”

In the third hour of testimony, an issue arose as to whether adequate timber was currently in place to support the sides of the Lancashire mine shaft.

“We can resolve the issue by visiting the mine,” the government solicitor suggested.

Murd did not like the idea.

“We will do it,” the coroner ruled.

Murd knew of the miners' existence through his business. He knew how much coal a given number of them could bring to the surface in a given period of time. He knew them as crowds of ants, burrowing and toiling underground. But he knew more about the ways of insects from his science studies in school than he knew of the miners as individuals.

Now, as Murd walked to the pit with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he was surrounded by them.

They reached the shaft, and a voice cried out, “Let him go into the mine.”

There were cries of assent.

Murd was feeling danger now. The coroner and government solicitor were standing back. His own solicitor was not in sight. The mob was in control.

Murd laid a hand on one of the miner's shoulders and sought to appease the crowd.

“My dear friends. You are blinded with passion. It is natural, very natural. But you do not know friend from foe.”

“We know the difference well,” a miner shouted. “Into the mine you go.”

“You are being hasty,” Murd pled.

“Are you a coward?”

The crowd surged threateningly forward. Murd moved closer to the top of the shaft to avoid being touched.

“You do not have the courage to go into your own mine,” a miner taunted.

“No man will go down the shaft again until you see with your own eyes what it is like,” another shouted.

The countenances of men who have undergone a particularly cruel captivity bear a record of their ordeal that never fades away. Murd now saw that look on the faces around him.

“Your gold is red with our blood.”

Murd looked down into the shaft. One of the miners took a stone and threw it into the pit. The stone could not be heard when it landed.

“It is a deep one,” the miner said.

The mob was crowding closer now. Murd thought desperately of running away and tearing through the streets. But no path was open for escape. And humiliation before these savages was unacceptable.

Murd stepped into the bucket that carried men to the bottom of the shaft. The composure drained from his face. He was trapped, caged like an animal.