“I’ve been trying to reach him,” Miss Byrne told her. “My wires have gone unanswered, so I thought I’d pay a visit. I let myself in; they’ve all flown the coop. I’m afraid I took rather too long a nap on this very plush divan.” She petted the upholstery. “Sorry.”
“There was an accident at the mine,” Hattie said tonelessly. “The past three, four days have been tremendously busy.
Miss Byrne had gone very still. “Any fatalities?”
“None. But it took over two days to free them.”
The woman still looked deeply worried. “Must’ve shattered him.”
Hattie swallowed hard. “The truth is,” she said, “I did not much recognize my husband after it happened.”
“So that’s why he pulled the rug from under old Rutland,” Aoife Byrne said, nodding. “I saw the headlines of his sudden demise and I had my suspicions.”
“I understand Rutland coerced the miners into using a risky extraction technique,” Hattie explained. “A tunnel collapsed because of it.”
“Poor Luke. That would do it.”
Hattie clutched her teacup more tightly. “Everyone seems rather cavalier about his lordship’s untimely death.” There was quite a bite to her voice considering she was more of a disembodied mind hovering about.
“Probably as cavalier as his lordship was when he killed Luke’s family,” Miss Byrne said with a shrug. “And I’d say they’re still far from even, considering Rutland got off easy. A nice, quick bullet on a day of his choosing instead of drowning unplanned.”
“What?”
The woman looked vaguely contrite. “My—he didn’t tell you.”
The tea churned in Hattie’s empty stomach. “He told me they drowned in an accident,” she said. “He told me Rutland owned the mine where he worked as a boy.”
“They did drown,” Miss Byrne confirmed. “In the mine. Because of Rutland’s criminal negligence.”
The drawing room wobbled before her eyes as if the whole house had been shifted onto quicksand. Two decades of rigorous breeding kept her sitting composed and upright. Why, she wanted to cry, why did he not tell me? Why does a stranger know these things?
She placed her cup on the table. “Miss Byrne,” she said. “Would you be so kind as to tell me what happened in the colliery?”
The woman contemplated her. “I don’t know if it’s my story to tell,” she then said. “If he’s not told you, he might’ve had his reasons.”
“I believe his reasons,” Hattie said, “are that he suffers from stunted emotional growth and finds it easier to build a business empire from nothing than to share relevant stories with his wife.”
A snort of amusement burst from Miss Byrne. “I’d like to speak in his favor here,” she then said. “I’ve never known him to be a chatty fellow in any case, and sometimes … sometimes there’s a sorrow that can’t be spoken. Hmm.” She plucked loose one of the lavender sprigs she had pinned to her bodice and brushed it under her nose while weighing her decision. “It’s in the archives of any newspaper, I suppose,” she finally said. “I’ll tell you what I know, ma’am. The mine where Blackstone used to work had a large stream flowing nearby. And it should’ve been secured against flooding by a wall—it rains a lot in Scotland, you see.”
“I noticed,” Hattie muttered.
“But Rutland, the miser, didn’t build a wall. And one day, during an unusually dry season, a lot of rain fell unexpectedly during a thunderstorm. And since Rutland hadn’t built a building over the heapstead, because as I said he is—was—tight-fisted, the rain extinguished the boiler fire of the steam engine that pulls up the cage with the miners and tubs. Everyone working underground was stuck. I understand Blackstone was in a different pit that day, but his mother and his sister were in the tunnel because Rutland didn’t care about no women and children being allowed below the surface. Anyway, while his mother and sister were waiting in the tunnel for the lift to work again, the runoff rainwater from the surrounding hills swelled the stream that went past the colliery to a torrent, and it rapidly went over the banks …”
Goose bumps rushed over Hattie’s skin. “Go on.”
“The miners in that section of the pit had been underground for over twelve hours already because Rutland worked them like pit ponies and cared nothing for working hours. So, tired and hungry, they decided to exit on foot through a ventilation shaft. At first, they seemed to make headway, but just as most of them had made it through the air door into the drift, the stream water came pouring down the slope of the shaft with such violence, it knocked them off their feet and washed them all back against the door—see, air doors, they open up away from you when you leave a tunnel, and so the water pressure kept the door shut and the water kept rising …”