Haggard

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘It looks comfortable enough. I'd like a word in private.' Emma glanced at the door.

  ‘I've work in the yard,' Meg said, and closed it behind her.

  'She's a good girl,' Haggard said. 'And a pretty one. She takes after her mother.'

  Emma slowly lowered herself into one of the chairs. 'Won't you sit down?'

  Haggard sat down. 'You'll have heard about Roger?'

  She nodded, ‘I am very happy for you, Mr. Haggard.'

  ‘I did not know Charlie would die. He was a difficult child. Like his sister.' He attempted a smile, ‘I do not suppose she is difficult, with you.'

  'No,' Emma said.

  Haggard got up, walked to the window, walked back again to his chair. 'I wronged you, Emma. I wronged you more than any man can ever have wronged a woman. I wronged you from the moment I saw you.' He paused; Emma continued to gaze at him. Her colour had settled down, as had her breathing. He went towards her, picked up her left hand; she wore a thin gold band. 'In a church?'

  ‘In a church, Mr. Haggard.'

  He released her hand, sat down again.

  'I knew my mistake, almost the moment it happened.' He shrugged. 'But what would you? Pride, I suppose.' His head came up. 'You don't believe me.'

  ‘I had never supposed to hear John Haggard apologising to anyone.'

  'Hum. Pride seems less important, as one grows older. Emma . . .'

  ‘I am married, Mr. Haggard. To a man I respect. A man who loves me.'

  'And do you love him?'

  ‘I am married to him, Mr. Haggard. He is the father of my children.'

  'Am I not the father of Alice? And you could bring your children, Emma. I'd treat them as my own.' 'Bring them where?' 'Emma . . .'

  'No.' She shook her head to emphasise her words. 'No, no, no.'

  'Emma.' He left his chair, knelt beside hers, took her hands. 'You'll not refuse me.'

  'No one ever refuses John Haggard,' she said with an attempt at humour.

  True.' He began to draw her forward, slowly. 'I have never knelt to any woman before either.' Not true. He had knelt to Alison Brand, ‘I love you, Emma. I have always loved you. Christ, I have realised how much I loved you, day after day after day. Emma . . .' Her face was close enough to reach with his lips. She allowed him that; her own were parted. Then she jerked herself away from him. 'No.'

  'Emma.' He'd not release her hands. 'I'd marry you, Emma.'

  She pulled her head back, stared at him.

  ‘I swear it. Emma Haggard. Isn't that what you've always wanted? Lady of Derleth. Can you do better than that?'

  She tugged on her hands. 'You buy, Mr. Haggard. Everything. Just as you bought me, once.'

  'I've a mind to make that up to you. I thought you understood that.'

  'In your own fashion, Mr. Haggard.' 'And that's not good enough for you.'

  Pink spots gathered in her cheeks. She had had enough experience of the suddenness of his anger, could discern the signs easily enough. 'Harry Bold took me in, Mr. Haggard. When I was right to die, just as Annie Kent died, in the cold and the snow, he took me in. He treated me as a woman, where you never treated me as anything save a handful of flesh. I loved you, John Haggard. I loved you because I had never loved anyone else. I loved you because I didn't know how to love. I loved you because you showed me a world I'd only dreamed of, in bed and out of it. I was prepared to love you to the end of my days.'

  'And you love as your mind directs,' Haggard said.

  ' 'Tis better than not to love at all.'

  He pushed himself to his feet. 'You'd starve, here in this cottage.'

  'We survive, Mr. Haggard’ 'For how long, I wonder?'

  She smiled. 'You're thinking of your factory? Harry can always go back to tinkering. I enjoyed the life, Mr. Haggard. I like new faces, and new places.'

  He stared at her, brow a mass of furrows. Then he pointed at her. 'You'll not forget I'm a magistrate in these parts, Emma. That husband of yours, and that son, are away poaching now. Don't lie to me.'

  'I'd not lie to you, Mr. Haggard. I don't know what they're doing at this moment. But my Harry owns this land. He paid for it, and he built this cottage with his own hands.' She stood up in turn. 'You'll leave it, if you please.'

  He stared at her in consternation. He had never been so addressed in his life.

  'Meg,' Emma called. 'You'll show Mr. Haggard to his horse.'

  'You think to defy me?' Haggard demanded.

  'No, Mr. Haggard. No one can do that. I am asking you to leave my house, as we have nothing more to say to each other, and I have a deal to do. I must spin all the cotton I can, before you take that right away from us.'

  Haggard gazed at her in impotent anger, then at the girl, who had crossed the room and now held the front door for him. He turned and brushed past her, swung into the saddle, kicked his horse towards the meadow. Too late he remembered that he had not discussed Johnnie's visits.

  As if it could have made any difference. Emma had changed. She was in a mood to defy him. The prospect of her daughter enjoying his son would to her be an enormous victory. It would merely have humiliated him further.

  His anger grew every time he thought about it, and he thought about it every day. He had been a fool to attempt to turn back the clock, and Emma, mean and vengeful Emma, intended to make sure he suffered for every wrong he had done her, real and imagined. He had apologised to her. He could do no more, and she had herself recognised how much that must have cost him. Just as she had recognised what a triumph she had achieved.

  She would be crushed, he thought, as he watched the machines being unloaded from their wagons, watched them being set up inside the factory. She would come to him and pray for a crust of bread, before he was finished with her. But not so long as she was able to bewitch Johnnie. Because very obviously she had, just as she had bewitched himself all those years ago. That problem had to be solved, or Johnnie would always stand between the two families, rejecting the one and protecting the other. He was a damnedly quixotic youth.

  And a damnedly independent one, as well. To forbid him ever to see Margaret Bold again would be a waste of time, and would cause another of those family rows which distressed him so deeply. There was no doubt. whose side Alice would take, nor did he really suppose there was much doubt whose side Roger would undoubtedly take, unless he had changed beyond recognition.

  Roger! The problem had to be solved before Roger came home.

  He had no legal jurisdiction over the Bolds, there was the trouble, as long as they remained in Plowding. But there would be no point in exercising such jurisdiction even if he possessed it; that would only alienate Johnnie the more. It needed to be something personal, something which would disgust Johnnie and turn him away from the Bold family.

  Haggard paced the floor of his office, pulling at his chin. Nor would it be any use harming Emma herself. That would hardly do more than increase Johnnie's sympathy for her. The girl Margaret had to be proved to be a whore. Would that make any difference to Johnnie? It occurred to Haggard that he did not know his son well enough.

  But he was a young man of birth and position, who foolishly imagined himself to be in love with a working girl. There was no official betrothal to be thought of, no family honour involved in marriage come what may. It was an infatuation, which, suitably exposed to the realities of life, had to die. So then, could Johnnie really love a girl who had been raped? There was the answer.

  He sat behind his desk, stared at the door. Are you a bad man, John Haggard? It was not a question he had asked himself for a very long time. But if I am a bad man, he thought angrily, it is circumstances have made me so. And I will defend my family to the end. In any event, Margaret Bold was a tinker's daughter. Really, there was very little difference between her and a Negro slave. She deserved to be punished for seducing a boy who was her better; she was fortunate he was not in a position to have her flogged. But could Johnnie love a girl who had been raped? If only he could be sure. Then consider th
e matter logically. The boy would hear about it, from Emma and from a tearful Margaret. Would that not only increase his sympathy, further suppose himself to be in love? Further titillate him, as it was titillating himself at the thought of it. It was too simple a matter, to be titillated by rape, there was the problem. The disgust of it, the bestiality, did not enter the imagination.

  Unless one had been a witness to it. Haggard sat up, slammed his fist on the desk. Because there was an added bonus; Margaret Bold would scarce fight. She might even acquiesce in the deed. Certainly she would beg for mercy, make herself a humiliated and repellent figure. While Johnnie would fight for her honour with all his strength, and defeated, watch her subjection with horror and disgust.

  Fight with all of his strength. It would have to be carefully handled. But that was a detail.

  And afterwards? The disgust would remain. No doubt about that. It would of course be tempered by sympathy and by a sense of honour. He would be humiliated himself. Well, that was no bad thing; he was an arrogant puppy. It would also cause resentment. Haggard knew that of himself. He hated those who caused him to be humiliated, even if it was not their fault, even if they had suffered equally. Johnnie would hardly feel different. However great his sense of honour, it would be tempered by resentment. It was a question of which would gain the day.

  But could it not be assisted? If at the very moment that Margaret Bold became an object of pitiful disgust to him another, at least as lovely and with the added charm of being of his own class, were suddenly to appear . . . Haggard found himself smiling. Life was really a very simple matter when one had the means and the determination to make it so. The determination to tuck morality out of sight, when it was necessary to do so. The determination to be Haggard. It was as simple as that.

  All that was needed was the girl. Alice? No, Alice had no friends, and even if she did, they would be too old. He needed to apply to one of Johnnie's friends. He remembered how enthusiastically the boy had talked about his week at Newstead. Well, Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse were away touring the Mediterranean. Skinner Matthews did not sound the sort of fellow to know anyone worthy of the name of Haggard. Francis Hodgson apparendy knew no women at all. But Wedderburn Webster? Now there was a likely prospect. A man of the world. Johnnie had said so. And with it a gentleman.

  Haggard rang the bell, sent for MacCuinness. There is something we must do, MacGuinness,' he said. 'I wish you to order my carriage prepared. I am going to London.'

  MaGuinness concealed his surprise. 'Very good, Mr. Haggard.'

  'And sit down,' Haggard said.

  This time MacGuinness's mouth opened in amazement. 'Sir?' 'Close the door, and sit down, MacGuinness,' Haggard said, ‘I wish to discuss a very confidential matter.'

  It would be a cold winter. Even with a week to go to Christmas, the air was crisp and breath clouded before the nose, of horse as well as rider, while there had been a frost the previous night. As if cold mattered. John Haggard wanted to sing as he let his horse pick its way through the already leafless trees towards the meadow; no need to guide Constable: he had taken this way sufficiently often in the past.

  Johnnie did not know how he had survived the Cambridge term. His every thought, every instinct, had been guiding him back to Derleth. He could not help but recall how George Byron had boasted that in three years he had spent only three terms actually in residence, ‘I had better things to do,' he would say in that dry tone of his. But it was best not to think of George Byron, now somewhere in the Mediterranean. That was finished and done with. Only Meg mattered now. For the whole autumn he had done nothing but think of her, with determination at first, with delighted anticipation at the end. She would be his, he would be hers, and stupid, irrelevant, obscene desires would be forgotten. The temptation to flee his tutors and return early had been overwhelming. But it would be senseless to anger Father at this juncture. It was Father's mood he had waited upon, and not in vain. Never had the old man been in a better humour than at the commencement of this holiday. The letter from Roger, the very news that he was alive and would eventually be coming home had made him a changed man. Too much so, in fact, as he had insisted upon having a house party for Christmas. Such a thing had never happened at Derleth before, and the news had left Alice staring at her father in open mouthed disbelief.

  And what a party. Wedderburn Webster, of all people. Johnnie supposed he should be grateful, as Father had obviously searched for one of his Cambridge friends. But Wedderburn, the greatest bore on earth? Why not Skinner? And Wedderburn was bringing a female friend, and her sister. 'We shall have a young people's Christmas,' Father had shouted, slapping him on the shoulder as was his habit.

  And John had done his best to smile and look pleased. He did not want anyone cluttering up the place at Christmas, especially two young women who would have to be entertained. On the other hand, he would never find Father in a better mood. He had almost been inclined to broach the matter there and then, but had decided to put it off. It was an immense step, and he would need all his resolution to carry it through. Besides, it was necessary first to see Meg again, to hold her in his arms again, to know it was no dream, that she loved him as much as he loved her. It would only be a few seconds now.

  He walked Constable up the path, dismounted, gazed at her, framed in the doorway, regarding him with a mixture of delight and disbelief.

  'Mr. Haggard?' Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

  'Meg.' He reached for her hands, but she drew away, backed into the house. 'Mr. Haggard,' she said again, this time speaking more loudly.

  Instantly her mother was at her shoulder, peering at him.

  ‘I am no ghost,' John Haggard said, now equally bewildered.

  Emma Bold glanced at her daughter, then opened the door wider. 'You'd best come in out of the cold.'

  Haggard ducked his head, entered the little room. 'I doubted I was welcome,' he said with a smile. 'Or had you heard I was dead?'

  Emma licked her lips. 'I'm sure Mr. Haggard would appreciate a cup of cider, Margaret,' she said.

  John Haggard's turn to glance from one to the other. 'There has been some catastrophe,' he said. 'Where is Mr. Bold? Where is Tim?'

  They are out,' Emma said. 'And there has been no catastrophe, Mr. Haggard. It is just that we did not expect you here.'

  He frowned at Meg. 'You knew I was returning for my holiday?' 'Yes, but . . .' She glanced at her mother. 'Your father was here,' Emma explained.

  'Father?' Johnnie sat down, took the cup of yellow liquid, sipped. 'Here? How did he know where you were?'

  Emma shrugged. 'He has his people everywhere. We do not hide.'

  'But . . . what did he want?'

  Emma flushed, sat down in turn. 'He wished me to return to the Hall.'

  'He asked Mama to marry him,' Margaret said.

  To . . . my God. But you are already married.'

  That were hardly a problem to John Haggard,' Emma said.

  'But . . . you refused him?'

  ‘Indeed I did.'

  'And he was very angry,' Margaret said.

  'And you thought he would stop me coming to see you? Well, he could not do that in any event. But he does not know of my visits.' 'Are you sure?'

  'Quite sure.' He frowned, thoughtfully. This afternoon, for instance, he had thought he heard hooves, and thought indeed he had seen some horsemen in the trees behind him. He had been grateful for the loaded pistol in his pocket; the countryside around Derleth was lonely enough, even if footpads and highwaymen were not generally found there. But no footpad would dare assault John Haggard. Father would tear the entire county apart to find them. 'Quite sure,' he said again.

  "Still,' Emma said. 'He will find out eventually, Mr. Haggard. You'd not wish to quarrel with your father. There has been too much of that.'

  Haggard turned his gaze on Margaret. 'You wish me to stop coming?'

  'There has been bitterness enough,' Emma insisted.

  There'll be no more bitterness, I pr
omise you,' Johnnie said. 'So he was angry. Well, no man likes being turned down, Mistress Bold. And it goes to show that he must still be very fond of you, must regret most heartily what happened all those years ago. Oh, don't suppose I am criticising your refusal, I am glad you did. He thinks he can snap his fingers and everyone does exactly as he wishes. It does him good to learn, from time to time, that not everyone is so compliant. And he has got over it, I do promise you. He is in the best of humours. So much so, that, well . . .' He hesitated, felt his cheeks burning, glanced at Meg. Who flushed in turn, and bit her lip.

  Emma commenced to frown. 'You have something to tell me?'

  'Something splendid, Mistress Bold. Something which makes me so happy you did not accept Father's proposal. Mistress Bold, I would like to marry Meg.'

  To . . .' Emma turned to stare at her daughter.

  ‘I ... it was to be a secret,' Margaret protested.

  'For as long as was necessary. It is no longer necessary. Father really is a new man since he learned Roger will be coming home. I mean to approach him this Christmas, secure his consent . . .'

  'Do you really suppose he will agree to your marrying my daughter?' Emma seemed dazed.

  'He will. And if he will not, then I will marry without his consent, the moment I am twenty-one. I will never be penniless, you know. By the terms of the marriage settlement with my mother, Father promised me an income of two hundred pounds a month from my eighteenth birthday. It is a legal matter.' .

  Emma gazed at Margaret. 'And what have you got to say about this?'

  'Why, Mama ... I would be honoured to be Johnnie's wife.' 'Do you love him?'

  'Oh, yes, Mama. I do love him.' Emma sighed. 'Does that mean . . .' 'Oh, no, Mama.'