Haggard

by Christopher Nicole

  'Well . . . you know I really have not been very keen on opposing Father. I felt it was disloyal for his only son, his heir . . .'

  'You mean you'll do something about the factory?' Her grip tightened. 'Oh, say that you will.'

  'Well . . .' He flushed, it's just about complete.'

  The machines aren't here yet. Father could still change his mind.'

  'I doubt it. And hadn't we better wait for Roger? He is the one Father is more likely to listen to.'

  'Oh, you . . .' She threw his hands away from her. 'You're afraid of him.'

  'Well . . . aren't you?'

  'No. I've told him what 1 think. But he just ignores me.'

  'And don't you suppose he'd ignore me? Believe me, Ally, Roger is your best bet.'

  'When he comes home,' she said, and wandered to the window. But Roger. He had never been afraid to oppose Father. And now there could be no question that Father would listen to him. Roger.

  John Haggard stood up. 'You'll see that I'm right. And I promise you this; whatever Roger decides to do, he will have my complete support. Now I must be off.'

  She turned back to him. 'Where?' The frown was back. 'You aren't doing anything stupid, are you Johnnie?'

  He gave a guilty laugh. 'Of course I'm not. I'm just enjoying riding over the countryside. In another week I'll be at Cambridge again. What a bore. I really am enjoying being free.' He blew her a kiss, ran down the stairs, called for his horse, swung into the saddle and sent it racing away, through the cut in the hills, past the mine and around the looming shell of the factory, over the following hills and into the woods beyond. Free, he thought. Free of the burden of being the next Haggard. Free to do as I wish, think what I wish, feel what I wish. Free to love, whomever I wish.

  He pulled rein, slowed his horse to a walk. There was the nub of the matter. Whomever I wish. Whatever I wish. Supposing I know what I wish. Supposing I dared to think about it.

  Supposing I could forget the gentle caress of Byron's fingers, sliding over my penis. My God, he thought. I dare not. Sodomy carries the death penalty. But girls ... he knew only the housemaid amidst the dirty plates. Then what of Meg Bold? A peasant girl, and therefore not one to see through his weaknesses, to do anything more than accept him. In what guise? She had given every indication of liking him, revealed nothing but pleasure whenever he called, which was as often as he could escape the Hall. And Emma and Harry Bold had equally become used to his visits, and prepared to welcome them. But no doubt, encouraged by Alice, they counted him a firm and valuable ally in the looming crisis that they could see ahead. What would their action be? And again, to what? Because he was considering the girl in the guise of a wife. He had to marry beneath himself, someone who would submit and submit and submit. And besides, she was such a lovely girl. She actually made him want her, and he had never felt that about any girl before. The future, should he let her go, was unthinkable.

  Then what of Father? That was something he had never considered, because marriage to Meg Bold had never seemed a possibility, before. But Father was at last happy. Why, he had never seen him so happy or seen him happy at all. And a happy father might well be a father who would welcome a reconciliation. So Meg was the daughter of a working man. Her mother had been good enough for Father's bed.

  But he had never married her. John Haggard plucked at his lip as his horse made its way into the open country beyond the trees. That had been his greatest crime. At least according to Alice. And his greatest mistake. Had he married Emma, he would have lived a happy life. And I would never have been born, John thought. Or at least, I would be Emma's son, and Meg would be my sister. Oh, happy thought, that Father had been a bad man. And it would all turn out for the best. He had no doubts about that.

  The cottage was in front of him; the roses still bloomed against the walls. He would always remember this cottage with roses blooming against the walls. And Meg was standing in the doorway to wave at him.

  ‘Is your mother at home?'

  'Why of course, Mr. Haggard. Have you come to see her, then?' Meg flushed as she spoke, aware of her forwardness. John Haggard gave her a smile and chucked her under the chin.

  'I have come to see you. But I've some news I know your mother would like.'

  Meg regarded him for some moments, a half smile on her face, then she looked over her shoulder. 'Mama. Mr. Haggard is here.'

  Emma Bold came outside, drying her hands on her apron. 'And welcome you are, Mr. Haggard.'

  ‘I have great news, Mistress Bold. My brother Roger has been found.'

  She stared at him, a frown slowly gathering between her eyes. 'Roger? You mean he is alive?'

  'Indeed. He is in the Army, in Spain. He has been in the Army, for the past seventeen years. He is all of a hero.'

  'Well, glory be,' Emma said. 'He was a fine boy. Your father must be very happy.'

  ‘I have never seen him so happy,' John Haggard confessed.

  This is a great day,' Emma said. 'Come inside, Mr. Haggard, and take a bowl of broth with us.'

  'I . . .'John Haggard made a great fuss of securing his horse's rein to the ring in the wall, it is such a lovely day. Mistress Bold, I thought I would take a walk.'

  Emma frowned at him. 'You rode twelve miles, to take a walk, Mr. Haggard?'

  'Well ... I thought Miss Meg might like to walk with me.'

  Emma's mouth opened, and then closed again. She looked at her daughter.

  'Could I Mama? I'd like that. Really I would.'

  Emma looked from one to the other. She was flushed, and seemed uncertain what to do. John Haggard could almost read her thoughts. The innate suspicion of the intentions of a gentleman added to the understanding that here was a possible crisis added to the consideration that the girl was almost his sister—completely set off by the fact that he was John Haggard.

  'Please, Mama,' Meg said.

  'Mind you're not long,' Emma said, and went inside. 'She likes you. I know she likes you, because she told me so,' Meg said.

  'She fears I may be too like my father.' He held the gate for her. Her arm brushed his as she went through, and he inhaled her scent. No perfume for a tinker's daughter. But a magnificent freshness.

  'And are you too like your father, Mr. Haggard?' John Haggard walked at her side. 'I'd like it very much if you'd call me John.'

  'You're Mr. Haggard,' she pointed out, very seriously. 'One day you'll be squire.'

  'No. Don't you see? I can't be squire, now. I thought I had to be before. Everything I did had to he subject to that consideration. But now that Roger will be coming home, why, I'm nothing. I'm just a younger son. I'll probably be sent into the Army, or the Navy. Or the Church.'

  When she frowned, she looked just like her mother, ‘I wouldn't like to think of you in the Army, Mr. Haggard.'

  'John.'

  She looked over her shoulder to make sure the cottage had disappeared. 'John.'

  'I don't think I'm really cut out for the Church.' Their knuckles brushed against each other, and he allowed his fingers to extend. A moment later hers caught in his. Her hand was dry and strong, ‘I know. I could ask Father to find me a position in the city. Or better yet, of course; he can make me manager of the plantation, in Barbados. There it is.'

  'Barbados?' she cried.

  'Wouldn't you like to visit Barbados?'

  'Me, Mr. Haggard?'

  'John. Yes. You see . . .' His turn to look over his shoulder and make sure they were alone. They had walked down the road from the cottage gate, and there was a stand of trees between them and the house. He stopped, and when she turned to face him, he took her other hand as well. 'Meg . . .' How solemn was her face, her eyes. And he knew he was flushing. 'Do you know, I've thought of no one but you since I met you, back at Easter? All last term, I could do no work for thinking of you. And since seeing you again this summer, oh, Meg, oh, dear, dear, Meg, I have dreamed of you every night.'

  'Oh, Mr. Haggard,' she said, flushing in turn and trying to free herself.
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br />   'Meg,' he said, tightening his grip and bringing her closer. 'I love you, Meg.'

  'Oh, Mr. Haggard.' But she had stopped pulling.

  ‘I want you to marry me.'

  'Marry you?' Her consternation was complete.

  'Because we can marry, don't you see? I'd never lie to you, Meg. When I was Father's heir, well, I had to think of him, of the estate, I had to be prepared to marry as he chose, or certainly as he thought best. But now that Roger is coming home, why, I'm no longer important. I can do what I like with my life. And I can marry whomever I like. Whomever I love.'

  'Marry you,' she muttered. 'Marry Mr. Haggard.'

  'John.'

  'Oh, Mr. Haggard,' she said, and came against him. Her head was tilted back and her mouth was open. He kissed it, felt her body against his, moving, her hands sliding his shoulders, and realised that here, for the very first time in his life, was a girl asking him to take her. She was his, all his, to do with as he wished.

  He held her arms, gently pushed her away from him. Her mouth was still open as her eyes were closed, but they now opened in turn, in alarm. It could not be explained to her. He could not tell her about the girl on Byron's dining table, the whore at Cambridge. She would hardly appreciate that, and she might not understand, in the first flush of love, that he did not want to have her until they were married, that he wanted nothing sordid or immoral to enter their lives at all.

  'You have made me so happy, Meg,' he said. The happiest man in all the world.'

  She closed her eyes again, ‘I love you, Mr. Haggard,’ she said, as if practising.

  'John,' he reminded her.

  'John.'

  'But you must listen, Meg. I have to go away to Cambridge, the day after tomorrow. I won't be back until Christmas.' Her eyes opened again.

  'But I will be back, then. Only you mustn't tell a soul about us, not now. Do you understand?'

  Her chin moved up and down, but clearly she didn't.

  'Because they might not understand, might not wish us to. Even your mother. You must leave the telling to me. When the time is right. Will you do that?'

  'Oh, yes, Mr. Haggard. Oh, yes.'

  'John,' he said, and kissed her again.

  'Well?' Haggard barked. 'Well?'

  MacGuinness stood on the far side of the desk, shifted from one foot to the other. 'They have been delayed, Mr. Haggard. Nothing more than that. Apparently they are delicate machines, and can easily go adrift. But they are on their way, I promise you. They will be here by the end of the month.'

  'By Christmas, you mean,' Haggard grumbled. 'And why are there no letters?'

  'Now that I couldn't say, Mr. Haggard.'

  'Well, then, is there news from Spain at all?'

  'Only that the Duke of Wellington continues to retreat, sir. They are saying he intends to pull back all the way to Lisbon.'

  'Bah. The fellow does not seem to know what he is about. Unless he means to evacuate the Army to England. Do you suppose he means that, MacGuinness?'

  His eagerness was pathetic, MacGuinness thought. 'I doubt that, Mr. Haggard. The country would not stand for it.'

  'I suppose you're right.’ Haggard leaned back. 'What of that other matter?'

  'Well, sir . . .' MacGuinness twisted his hat in his hands. 'I've lived fifty-six years, MacGuinness. Don't come over coy with me. It's a girl.'

  'Well, yes, sir, I imagine it is. Mr. John has been riding over in the direction of Plowding.' 'Go on.'

  'Well, sir, one of my people followed him, as you instructed, on his last visit there, and we discovered that he went visiting at a cottage outside the village.'

  'Ha. The young devil. And here was I beginning to wonder if he'd any spunk at all.' Then Haggard frowned. 'A cottage, you say, outside the village proper? Does not sound like a whorehouse to me.'

  'It is not a whorehouse, sir.'

  'A yeoman? And he'd let his daughter mess with a member of the gentry?'

  MacGuinness preferred not to comment, but he was back to twisting his hat again.

  'You'll find out his name, MacGuinness. And continue to keep an eye on it, when Mr. John comes back.'

  MacGuinness licked his lips. 'I have found out his name, Mr. Haggard. Tis Bold.'

  Haggard's frown deepened. 'Bold? Bold. I have heard that before, I'll swear.'

  ‘Indeed you have, Mr. Haggard. It was in support of Harry Bold that Mr. Roger broke my head, on your wedding night.'

  'By Christ.' Haggard sat up straight. 'Harry Bold. Great God in Heaven. Sitting on my very doorstep seducing my son. My God. How long?'

  'Several years now, sir. He has given up tinkering, and spins cotton instead.'

  'He does, does he? We'll soon see about that.' Haggard glanced at his steward, looked down at the desk again, is he ... I mean . . .’

  'He is married now, Mr. Haggard. But his wife is Miss Dearborn.'

  Haggard leaned back again. 'Hum,' he said. 'Hum. Very good, MacGuinness. You've done well. Oh, aye. Now fetch me those looms.'

  Emma. Emma Dearborn. Emma Bold. Emma, of the glowing red hair and the twinkling eyes. Emma of the suspicious look and the sudden warmth. Emma, Emma, Emma. Why, she would be . . . forty-five years old. Emma, at forty-five. And several times a mother. She would be fat and flouncing, and undoubtedly reverted to her common ancestry. He doubted she'd remember which fork to use.

  Then why was he here? Why was he behaving like a lovesick boy? Johnnie had apparently at least ridden up to the cottage without hesitation, while his father lurked in the trees and gazed at the little house with a pounding heart. But Emma. After all his years of loneliness, Emma. He had never been lonely with her at his side. He need never be lonely again. Undoubtedly he had made a mistake when he had quarrelled with her. Mistake? It had been a catastrophe. Save for Johnnie. But might not Emma have produced a Johnnie? He could not believe there was a great deal of Alison in the boy. He was too open, too good-humoured. Alison would suggest a frightful flaw, waiting to be exposed, and he had seen none of that. There were no flaws in Emma.

  But she was married. Or said she was. To an itinerant named Bold. There was no problem, surely. It really was very doubtful whether it had been a legal marriage. Then why was he lurking here in the trees? Well, for one thing, Bold would undoubtedly not have forgotten who had sent the men to expel him from Derleth, eighteen years before. And he had no means of telling whose side Emma would take. But that was stuff and nonsense. Would she seriously side with Harry Bold, when all of her future demanded she return to Derleth?

  He watched the door of the cottage open, saw two men come out. A man and a boy, he realised, and the boy had reddish brown hair. Emma's son, just as the bearded man had to be Harry Bold. It was something of a surprise for him to realise that he had never actually seen the fellow before. But they were going out, carrying a fowling piece and a net. Poaching, by God. Not on his land, at the least.

  The pair disappeared into the trees behind the house. They'd not be back for some time. It seemed to Haggard that fate was conspiring to make his task easy. But Fate would always have known that he was meant for Emma, as Fate had sent him the girl in the first place. His heart began to pound, and he wiped a trace of sweat from his neck and forehead. John Haggard, Squire of Derleth, nervous at the thought of visiting a tinker's wife. But suppose she was, after all, fat and blowsy? It was most likely.

  He kicked his horse, walked it out from the trees, slowly approached the cottage. The sound of the hooves was deadened in the soft earth—there had been recent rain—but his approach had either been heard or overlooked; he watched a window open and then close again. He turned in through the gate, listened to the clucking of chickens from behind the house. There was no dog. He dismounted at the front door, and it opened. His heartbeat quickened still further as he gazed at the girl. Emma, reborn. Johnnie's doxie. Frowning at him as she took in the richness of his coat and boots, of his horse furniture. 'Sir?'

  Haggard raised his beaver. To a tinker's daughter, ye gods;
he might as well be in France, is your mother at home?'

  'Oh, yes, sir.' Meg backed away from the door, leaving it open. 'Ma,' she cried. 'Ma, there's a gentleman at the door.'

  'A gentleman?' Emma hurried into sight, drying her hands on her apron. Emma. Had she changed at all? She wore a cap and he could not see her hair. She had thickened somewhat at the thigh —but then, so had he. And her face had not changed in the slightest; there had been crowsfeet at the comers of her eyes before they had left Barbados. 'Sir?' she inquired, and frowned as she came closer. He remembered that she had always been a trifle short-sighted. She reached the door, and stopped, and gave a little gasp. The colour drained from her face, and then returned again in a rush.

  ‘I happened to be passing,' Haggard lied.

  She swallowed. 'You knew where I lived?'

  'Of course.' Another lie. But was not the entire purpose of this visit a lie? How lovely she looked. How utterly everything he wanted in a woman.

  She looked from right to left, patently uncertain what to do next.

  'May I come in?' Haggard asked.

  She stood aside. Her hands were back at her apron, twining themselves together. Meg continued to stand at the inner door, looking equally embarrassed. Haggard ducked his head and entered the cottage, closing the door behind him and looking around, at the hand looms, at the four straight chairs and the kitchen table which composed the furniture, at the curtains, worn but clean enough, as indeed were the walls and ceiling, at the glowing fire in the grate, the pot of rabbit stew hanging from the spit, the mushrooms and the turnips placed amongst the coal.

  ' Tis not what you are used to, Mr. Haggard.' Emma seemed to be recovering.