Haggard

by Christopher Nicole

  'A snake,' she snarled. 'And what are you, John Haggard? A stupid old man. A cuckold in his own home, by his own son.'

  Haggard's head jerked. 'By God,' he said.

  'Oh, yes,' Alison shouted. 'It was I seduced your precious son. Oh, I destroyed him, all right. I didn't mean to. I meant to use him to destroy you. But what difference does it make? He jumped from my bed and fled the house when he realised it was me. He abandoned his home and his regiment and his honour. Oh, he is destroyed, Haggard.' She paused for breath, and to pant, amazed at her own temerity. 'What are you going to do?'

  Haggard stepped round the amazed babe.

  'You'll not whip me," Alison said. 'By God, you'll not. I'll walk Piccadilly naked to show the world your stripes, Haggard.'

  Haggard reached out, seized her wrist.

  'You'll not,' she spat at him.

  'I'll not whip you,' Haggard said. There would be a waste.' Slowly he drew her towards him, then thrust down his other arm to encompass her knees and lift her from the floor, ‘I am going to bed you.'

  To . . .' She stared at him.

  'As you have robbed me of two of my sons, Mistress Haggard,' he said. 'I am going to make sure you replace them, as soon as possible.'

  Book The Second

  THE SON

  CHAPTER 1

  THE INDUSTRIALIST

  George Cummings twisted his hat in his hands. He was getting too old for breakneck journeys up and down the London turnpike, especially when they were invariably the result of bad news. Nor was he ever sure of his reception. John Haggard's moods were notoriously unpredictable.

  But this morning the squire merely leaned back and frowned. He frowned so often, nowadays, there were permanent grooves between his forehead, just as he drove his hands into the greying dark hair so often that it was receding to extend the forehead itself higher and higher. He was no youngster himself, Cummings remembered. Why, he had to be fifty-six years old. He could hardly believe that it was nineteen years since this man had abandoned his plantation and come here to live. He wondered what Haggard really thought of that decision, in retrospect.

  'All gone,' Haggard mused. 'What were the Navy doing?'

  'Well, sir, Mr. Haggard, the convoy was first of all scattered by a storm. And then it was just bad luck, I reckon, for them to have fallen in with a line of battle ship. Why I didn't know the frogs had one left.'

  'Neither did I,' Haggard said.

  But why shouldn't they have a fleet again, he wondered? It was sixteen years since this dreary war had begun, four even from Trafalgar, and there was no prospect of an end in sight. Indeed, with Bonaparte controlling all of Europe west of Russia, and Russia itself his firm ally, with both the men who might have found an acceptable formula for peace, Pitt and Fox, dead, it was difficult to see how it could ever end. Bonaparte could not be beaten, but on the other hand he could not defeat England, at least in the field.

  Haggard pulled his chin. But the French might hope to do so by commerce raiding, by the destruction of English trade. It was the fifth crop he had lost since the struggle began. These were absorbable. What was far more serious was the closing of the European markets for West Indian sugar. By Napoleonic decree

  the helpless French and Germans and Belgians and Hollanders and even Austrians now sweetened their coffee with sugar obtained from beet. Sugar which he and his father had supplied, twenty years ago, and which represented their true profit.

  'What are you going to do, Mr. Haggard?' Cummings asked.

  'Do?' Haggard pushed back his chair and stood up. He suffered from rheumatism in the winters, but with the coming of spring his bones and muscles regained a great deal of their former elasticity. In the spring he was as happy as it was possible for him to be. If it was possible for him to be, happy, ‘I shall have to consider.'

  The plantation is now showing a loss, sir. I cannot remember that ever happening before, not even during the American War. And all this Whiggish agitation . . .'

  'I know of it.' Haggard stood at the window, looked out at the apple trees. Agitation to oppose which he would make one of his rare treks to Westminster. Since Pitt had resigned over the King's refusal to admit his Irish proposals—how long ago was that night when they had discussed his ambitions over Brand's port—be had attended Parliament but once. He loathed and hated the city, as perhaps he feared it. And since his defeat over the Trade, he had loathed it even more. So Wilberforce had finally had his way, and Sharp must have rolled in his grave with glee. Haggard wondered what Middlesex, supposing he still lived, thought of it all. But Wilberforce was like a terrier. Having pushed the abolition of the trade through Parliament, despite a speech which Haggard had been assured was the most brilliant he had ever made, the mad fool was now seeking to strike at the very institution of slavery itself. For the sake of a principle he would ruin the West Indian plantations, one of the main sources of British wealth, the wealth upon which men like Wilberforce depended to fight the French. He'd not succeed there. Not all the Whigs were that hog-headed. But once again it would be a matter of journeying to London, of making speeches, of defending the interest of all those stiff-necked idiots in Barbados because they were his interests as well, and of continuing to be the best-hated man in England, merely because he sought to defend his own property, his own rights.

  And for what? If the Whigs had an iota of sense, they'd have realised by now that Bonaparte was winning their battle for them. With the European markets closed, and with his cruisers snipping away at each homeward bound sugar fleet, another five years would see even Haggard's Penn on the verge of bankruptcy.

  Cummings shifted his feet. He had ridden all night, and could barely stand.

  'You'll spend the night,' Haggard said. 'And dine with me. But get some rest.'

  Thank you, Mr. Haggard. If there is anything . . .'

  iil tell you,' Haggard said. He went down the stairs and out the side door. It was time to think.

  Ned was waiting for him, a horse saddled as ever. 'Morning to you, Mr. Haggard.'

  ‘I’ll walk today, Ned,' Haggard said, and strolled down the hill, cutting at the daisies with his stick. Time to think. He stood on the shallow brow of the hill, looked down on what had once been the Hall. He had had the old building pulled down, sixteen years ago. Then it had been a scar on the green face of his valley, but now there was almost no evidence that it had ever been there. He had planted it with poplars, and in the centre he had erected the family vault. Parson Porlock had objected to that, but he had been overruled, had consecrated the ground after all. No one living in Derleth dared object to anything the squire proposed. His money, his willingness to repair their houses and finance their projects and pension their fathers and mothers, in exchange for their unswerving loyalty and obedience, had proved too formidable a weapon. Haggard the slave owner, he thought with a grim smile. He owned these people, by virtue of his purse, as much as he owned the blacks on Haggard's Penn.

  But such ownership depended entirely upon his wealth. He thought he would like to see Bonaparte and Wilberforce, together, squirming in hell.

  He walked towards the grave, his terriers snapping at his heels. Why? Why torment himself? He could hear her as he approached, as he sometimes heard her at night, wailing around the eaves. 'I hate you Haggard,' she screamed at him. 'God damn you, Haggard. I hate you. May you die in a gutter, Haggard.' She had screamed that every time he had entered her, and she had screamed like that the day she had discovered her second pregnancy, and she had screamed like that seconds before she had given birth, and died. The most beautiful woman in England, lying at his feet, destroyed. Once he had wanted to destroy beauty, and had found he could not. Although, no doubt, he had destroyed Emma Dearborn as much as he had ever destroyed Alison Brand. He had destroyed all the Brands, the colonel through drink, and

  Emily, so it was said—and he could believe—from sheer grief at the death of her sister. Haggard the destroyer.

  Because he had destroyed more than that. H
e stood before the white marble, gazed at the door and the inscription. There was only one coffin within that vault; they had buried the babe with its mother. But there should have been at least three. Charlie, mouldering bones at the bottom of the sea; Roger mouldering bones no doubt in some gutter. Haggard the destroyer.

  And equally, Haggard the indestructible, he reminded himself fiercely, blinking back the tears. How Alison, from her perch on a cloud or from her burning furnace, must seethe with rage, at the sight of the man she had hated proceeding on his way. His hair was grey, and his waist had thickened. There was no further evidence of age. Not even the maids could discover any lessening of the essential power that had always been his; they weren't to know that he wanted them less and less—they would put that down to increasing preoccupation with other things.

  'So hate away, my darling,' he said to the stone. 'You cannot touch me. And I have Johnnie.'

  Because there was the greatest irony of all. Alison, by merely living, had robbed him of Charlie as much as by her very hate she had robbed him of Roger. Had she planned it she could not have more securely established her own son as the Haggard heir. What a triumph that had been for her, and she recognised none of it. She was dead, and Johnnie lived, and as he remembered nothing of his mother, nothing of the hate, he could love his father. Why, Johnnie Haggard was Roger all over again, but with a vital difference: he had not been neglected. No father could ever have lavished more love on a child. No father could ever have educated a son more carefully. And no father could ever have been better rewarded. Johnnie Haggard might be only seventeen, but he had already completed his schooling at Harrow, and was in his first year at Cambridge. So he possessed certain traits unique for a Haggard and not altogether welcome; poetry was a form of expression Haggard had never ever been able to understand, much less appreciate. But for Johnnie to scribble verses was better than for him to be riddled with the clap all the time.

  'So hate away,' he said again. 'You'll not harm me, my darling.'

  He left the tomb, slowly continued on his way down the hill. He did this often, took a constitutional to the church and the village. The people liked to see their squire, and he liked to see them. However hard times might have become, as prices rose and the government tried to hold wages steady, there was a certain security in Derleth. Haggard regarded them all as his family. Even the Laceys, even Margaret, unmarried and her beauty fading into wrinkles. He had seen them die, and he had seen them born, and he had seen them wed, every birth and every wedding attended by a handsome present from the squire. He had bought their affection. And not even the combination of Wilberforce and Bonaparte could change that. The Haggard millions might be dwindling, but they were good for his lifetime. He had merely been feeling pessimistic, earlier.

  He stopped, frowning down the main street. His lifetime. He had never considered very deeply what might happen after that. He had been born Haggard, and he would die Haggard. That single goal had stretched before him. when all the other, ephemeral goals—the ministry he had dreamed of, the social lion he had once thought of becoming, even the presentation at court which had never happened—had fallen by the wayside, regretted only for a passing moment. And that goal would be achieved. There was no force on earth could prevent it being achieved, unless he renounced his birthright, and he could perceive no signs of dementia in himself.

  But what of after? What of Johnnie? Poetry or no, the boy was a Haggard through and through. He had been brought up to that, would undoubtedly fulfil every ideal necessary to the name, certainly once he had rid himself of the Whiggish notions common to every young man. But his future must be equally safeguarded. It was not enough to reflect that his fortune would see him out, it had to stretch into the distance, for the support of Johnnie and of Johnnie's children, until the end of time. If for no other reason than that to allow the family to decline would mean that Alison, from her gutter in hell, would have gained a victory. Or worse, that Emma's curses—for if she was still alive she was undoubtedly still cursing him—would have been successful.

  He walked down the street, the dogs continuing to frisk at his heels. People touched their hats and the women curtsied. If they feared him they also loved him, in their own way! Many stopped, for occasionally the squire himself stopped for a chat. But today he did not wish to speak with any of them. Today he wished to think.

  What was the answer to his problem? Why, to pick up Haggard's Penn, bodily, and transport it to somewhere beyond the reach of Napoleon's cruisers, and to replace his sugar with something less perishable, something which could be stored and sold whenever the continental markets opened again, or whenever new markets were discovered. There were no new markets for sugar. However much the world was opening for western trade, the Indians of the Americas or the Negroes of Africa or even the Chinese of Asia, did not put sugar in their coffee, because they did not drink coffee at all.

  So there it was, a simple solution really, were he a god. But he was Haggard.

  He opened the door to the inn. It was still early in the morning, and taproom was empty, save for old Hatchard, polishing glasses behind his bar.

  'Mr. Haggard? Good morning, sir, good morning. You'll take a glass of ale? Martha? Martha? Bring some bones for the dogs, there's a good lass.'

  Haggard sat down, took the foaming tankard, sipped. He had developed quite a taste for ale, however unsophisticated a drink it might be when compared with sangaree. The dogs deserted his boots for the mutton bones of Martha Hatchard.

  'A fine day, Mr. Haggard, sir,' Hatchard commented, it'll be a good summer, I reckon.'

  Haggard drank some more beer. Haggard's Penn could not be transported, but a new factory could be built. There was answer number one. But who would do the field work? No slaves were permitted in England. He would have to pay wages to a vast labour force. And where would he get the acreage, save by ploughing up all his farmland, and all his tenants' farmland as well. And what could he grow? Sugar needed heat.

  There's no ill news, Mr. Haggard?' Hatchard inquired.

  Haggard ignored him. So, the crop, whatever it was, would have to be low labour intensity, and amenable to this climate. Just as it had to be non-perishable. Whoever heard of non-perishable food?

  Wheels rumbled, dogs barked, brakes squealed. Haggard raised his head.

  The northbound stage, Mr. Haggard,' Hatchard said apologetically. There'll be passengers.'

  Haggard nodded, took his ale into the corner, sat down again. The doors were (lung open, three men came bustling in, red faced and cloaked against the spring winds and rain, calling for ale and for food. Behind them came an elderly married couple, obviously sore and cramped from sitting in the coach. And behind them again came the coachman himself, humping a small chest.

  'For Jem and his friends,' he said. "You've the payment?'

  ‘Oh, aye, right here.' Hatchard produced a bag of coin.

  'Good business,' the driver said. 'Good business.' He turned as Haggard approached. 'And a good day to you Mr. Haggard, sir. Why, 'tis a pleasure stopping at Derleth, indeed it is.'

  ‘I’ll apologise for the disturbance, Mr. Haggard,' Hatchard said.

  'But these people are here for dinner.'

  Haggard nodded. ‘I’ll not clutter up your taproom, Hatchard. What's in the box?' 'The box, sir?' That one.'

  'Why, cotton fibre, sir.'

  Haggard frowned at him. 'Cotton fibre?'

  'Oh, aye, sir. Jemmy has quite a cooperative going. Didn't you know, sir? There are twelve families in on it. The women spin the cotton, you see, sir, and the men weave it into good cloth, and then the buyer comes, oh, regular, and pays coin for it. Tis a thriving community we have here, Mr. Haggard.'

  Haggard continued to frown. 'But where does the fibre come from?'

  'Why, from the Americas, sir. The colonies what were. The United States. 'Tis a thriving trade.'

  'Cotton fibres,' Haggard said. 'By God.' He finished his ale. 'You'll give everyone here a drink, on the squire, Hatcha
rd. I'm pleased to see them, that I am.'

  Haggard strode up the hill, regardless of the spring drizzle which had suddenly started. He was still Haggard. He had but to put his mind to a problem, and it was solved. The door was opened for him by one of the under footmen, and he marched through, the dogs still excited at his heels.

  'Mr. Haggard.' Mary Prince was thirty years old now, and housekeeper of Derleth Hall ever since the death of Patience Wring. She had put on far too much weight, and had never been very beautiful. But if she understood she would never again be for his bed, she was happy enough to supply him with those of her inferiors as he fancied—her son had emigrated to the Canadian colonies with his pockets full of Haggard guineas. He would not return. Haggard had no intention of ever recognising a bastard again. But Mary was content enough, and fussed over her master as if she were still his mistress. 'You're soaked through, that you are. You should take care, Mr. Haggard.' She pulled off his coat. 'And your shirt.'

  The devil with my shirt,' Haggard snapped. Tell Morton to prepare me some mulled wine. Where is Mr. Cummings?'

  'Why, sir, he's asleep.'

  'Send someone to wake him up and tell him to come down to the office. And send one of the lads for MacGuinness. I want them both in my office in ten minutes. Haste now.' He slapped her bottom and climbed the stairs, stopped halfway up, gazed at the woman standing above him. Oh, indeed, he would never again recognise a bastard. Alice remained a massive weight lying across his mind and his pleasure. And the strange thing was that he was content it should be so. He had wanted to marry her off, once. He had produced a string of suitors, and she had turned them all away. She was a pretty young woman, prettier at twenty-eight than ever she had been as a girl. She possessed her mother's hair, and wore it loose, as Emma had done, no doubt the more to remind him of that particular crime, as she would have it. And he had to admit she managed his house with supreme efficiency. The girls were terrified of her, as indeed were the footmen and even Nugent the butler. If she chose to live and die a spinster, why should he quarrel with that? It was the most convenient for him.