Haggard (38 page)

'You'll be employing women as well as men, Mr. Haggard,' MacGuinness said. 'Now there's a difficulty.'

'What difficulty? I employ women as well as men down the mine. I have employed men and women in Barbados. Four walls and a roof. Only the site matters. It should be near running water; that will be our power source. And I don't want to have to look at it all day. Over the hill is best. Close to the mine. Aye, we'll keep all the industry in the valley in one place.' He pointed. 'I'll leave that with you, MacGuinness. But I want it started right away. I want to be in production by the autumn. You'll also settle the rates of pay and secure the labour.'

MacGuinness gazed at the floor. 'You'll not get it here, Mr. Haggard. The lass may well be right. They're independent-minded people in Derleth, who like to earn their own money.'

'Nonsense. Labour goes where the money is. The wholesale buyers aren't going to deal with a lot of cottage industries when they can obtain their goods in bulk from us.' Haggard leaned back in his chair, pointed at MacGuinness.
‘I
want work to start on the factory, now.'

There you are.' The sixth Lord Byron leaned from the window of the coach, pointed at the buildings before them. 'Newstead Abbey.'

The other young men stared from both sides of the coach. ' Tis awful decrepit,' remarked Wedderbum Webster.

The Abbey,' Byron agreed. The house is not too bad. You'll see it in a moment. It's built away from the ruin.'

'But where are the trees?' Skinner Matthews inquired. For the road down which they were travelling was lined on either side with only stumps, and indeed there was hardly a tree to be seen in the entire park.

'Ah, well, my great uncle, may the devil bless the poor old sod, cut them down to settle his debts,' Byron commented with a brief laugh.

'And left you with naught with which to meet yours,' Cam Hobhouse shouted.

Byron nodded, a frown flitting over his face. ' Tis a problem, to be sure. Wake up there, Johnnie lad. What do
you
think of it all?'

John Haggard scratched his head. He had not been asleep, but he supposed he was dreaming. To have been befriended by these men at all, because they
were
men, every one at least twenty, while he was a freshman of seventeen, had left his head in a whirl. The invitation to spend a week's holiday with them had been like a summons to ascend Olympus. Apart from having completed their university careers, while he was but beginning his, they were so sophisticated and so talented. Webster was a bit of a bore, but no one could doubt that he was a man of the world, if only a tenth of his stories were true; Francis Hodgson, the sixth member of the party, was quiet and withdrawn, but obviously very learned; Skinner Matthews was all fire and wit and bubbling energy; Cam Hobhouse was much more serious, but had considerable ability as a writer, it was said; and then, their host himself. John Haggard was still unsure what to make of him. Remarkably handsome, to be sure, in a
raffish
fashion, as far as face went, with a somewhat heavy body rendered the more clumsy by his permanent limp —but his right leg was something to be discussed without driving his lordship into one of his frequent moods of violent bad temper. Remarkably talented, too, it was claimed, but at writing poetry rather than prose, and John was no judge of that. And remarkably wicked? John had no idea. This was the first time he had been admitted to intimacy with any of the group; all the rest was hearsay. But Byron had a peculiar way of looking at people, and particularly himself, John realised, which seemed to shroud them in the aura of his personality. 'You must come to Newstead,' he had said, it will only be for a week, because at the end of that time Hobhouse and I are off on our travels. Turkey and the east, there is our destination. Why, my dear Haggard, we may never return. You must come to Newstead.'

‘I
am sure I will be boring
,' John Haggard had protested.

'You, my dear Haggard, could never be boring. Because you are rich, or will be, and we are poor. Because you are gay, and we are sad. And because you are the most handsome little devil I have ever laid eyes on, and we are ugly.' And he had squeezed Haggard's hand in a peculiarly intimate way which had sent a thrill right through his system.

He had never thought of it before, but he supposed Byron was absolutely right. He
was
going to be immensely rich when he inherited. Everyone had heard of John Haggard Senior's millions. And almost everyone else at Cambridge
was
most terribly in debt. As to gaiety, he really did not think he was any happier than Matthews, for example—save that he was
genuinely
happy, completely contented with his lot and his future, while Matthews' gaiety had an air of desperation, as if he knew he was laughing in borrowed time. And he supposed he was handsome. He had often been told, and not only by his father, that his mother had been the most beautiful woman in England. He had inherited a great deal of those small, exquisitely carved features, just as he had inherited his father's height and cool blue eyes and lank black hair.

But had he really been invited to join five men at Newstead because of his looks?

‘I
was but thinking what a splendid place this could be,' he confessed, it is larger than Derleth.'

'Aye, but not so prosperous, I'll wager,' Byron said. 'Still, perhaps it will
look
as prosperous one day. Now then lads, let's discover the secrets of my ancestral home.
’

The carriage was stopping, and footmen were waiting to assist the young gentlemen. Also waiting were a bevy of housemaids, all young and remarkably pretty—'Chose them myself,' Byron boasted—and a large shaggy dog which assaulted its master with every evidence of affection.

'Mind how you go,' Byron advised.

John was last down, pausing to admire the Abbey itself, the roofless main hall of which stretched away from the side of the house before dwindling into tumbled cells and cloisters. Now he followed Matthews through the great doorway, to hear his friend give a startled exclamation. 'For God's sake. Rescue. Rescue.'

John ran forward, checked at the sight of the large brown bear, controlled to a certain extent by the chain around his waist, but into whose clutches Matthews had inadvertently strayed, and who now appeared to be attempting to kiss the young man.

'Byron,' John shouted. 'Help us.'

Byron limped into the hall, caught the bear a resounding thwack across the nose, at which the animal reluctandy released its victim and turned its attention to its master. But Byron was too quick for it, retreating out of reach with another pat, this time less violent.

'Tis only Bruin,' he explained. 'Why, down to last year I had him at Cambridge with me.'

'At Cambridge?' Webster shouted. 'What did the Fellows say?'

Byron winked. 'What
could
they say? I wished to take one of my dogs, and was forbidden. The rule was there, and I was helpless. But the rule specified
dogs.
So when I went out and bought myself Bruin,
they
were helpless. Why, I even put him up for a degree, as he spent several terms in residence. But they've no humour. Now come along lads, the girls will show you to your rooms, but no dalliance.' He laid his finger on his nose. That comes later. Tomorrow we will start to dig.'

To dig?' Hobhouse inquired.

'Why else are we here? Think of it, man. This place was an Abbey, back in the sixteenth century. Before it was ever given to my ancestors. Now do you not suppose, when the monks heard the tramp of armoured feet approaching. Great Harry's minions, no less, come to strip them of their wealth, that they went out and buried it? I swear this place is standing on top of a gold mine, can we but find it. And you'll not deny I need to discover a gold mine more than most? Tomorrow we dig.'

His enthusiasm, his tireless energy, flowed over them like cool water. And the house was comfortable enough. John tried the bed, bounced on it while the maid stood just inside the doorway and watched him. 'Will that be all, sir?' she inquired hopefully.

He must act the part for which he had obviously been invited. 'For the moment,' he said. She gave a little simper and withdrew. What would she say, he wondered, what
will
she say, when she discovers I am quite virginal? And was suddenly nervous. He had ever been too concerned with games, with cricket and football and swimming, to bother himself too much about women, and during his first weeks at Cambridge he had resisted the temptation which had been thrown in his way by his elders. But he was about to become a man, here at Newstead.

He sat up as the door opened. 'Well, Johnnie, lad.' Byron limped into the room, closed the door behind him. 'Comfortable?'

'Indeed I am.'

Byron sat on the bed beside him. ' Tis the second best room in the house.'

'Oh, but . . . what of Cam?'

‘I
s further away. I have had you put next to me
. After all, you are my protege
are you not?' Once again the long, serious stare.

'Well, I . . .' John felt his cheeks burning,
‘I
wish I knew why.'

'Have I not told you?' 'Nothing I could believe.'

'You are too modest. But there is more. I remember you from Harrow.'

'Do you? You were in the Sixth.'

'And even then had a reputation for misanthropy, I'll be bound. But I do remember you.
1
remember your first night, when we made you get up to those antics.'

‘I
hated you all,' John confessed.

'And I thought, there is the prettiest lad I have ever seen. I was all of mind to pull your cocker for you.' He paused, staring at his friend. 'Would you have hated me the more for that?'

‘I
would have blacked your eye for you.' John flushed. 'Or at least tried.'

'Spoken like a man,' Byron said, and got up to wander the room, in his slow and embarrassing fashion. 'And then, after I had left, I could not but hear how you were prospering, captain of cricket . . .'

'You played for the school.'

'Ha ha. But once, in that game we had with Eton.' 'And top scored, as I remember.'

‘
Second highest, to be sure. But we were thoroughly thrashed. No, no, I am no athlete, Haggard. How could I be?' His face twisted as he slapped himself on the thigh.

‘I
. . .' He could think of nothing to say.

Byron had come back to the bed. it is a pleasure to have you at Newstead,' he said. 'A great pleasure.' He stretched out his hand, stroked the side of John's face. 'I will enjoy your company.'

Now what the devil had he meant by that, John Haggard wondered? But it was not something to be considered this night. Or even believed. Byron's face was relaxed under the influence of the wine he had been drinking, the conversation which had flowed through the meal and was only now beginning to dry as their brains became fuddled.

'Ah, she was a beauty,' Webster said, leaning back in his chair. 'Better than the other one. But I should tell you . . .'

'No more,' Matthews said. 'I beg of you, my dear Wedderbum. No more.'

'I was going to recount how I had them both together. There was an occasion.'

'Sir, you disgust me,' Hodgson said, pushing back his chair and rising somewhat unsteadily. Like his host, he was lame. 'Now Francis, where are you off to?' Byron demanded. To my room to study,' Hodgson said. 'For God's sake, it is barely midnight.'

'Aye, and the conversation degenerates. I have no doubt the conduct will soon follow. I will bid you all good-night.' He stumped to the door, nodded to the footman.

'Now there, you wretched man,' Matthews said. 'You have offended dear Frank.'

'Wretched man?' Webster bellowed. 'By God, sir, you'll not repeat those words.'

'Wretched man, wretched man, wretched man,' Matthews said.

'By God, sir, my second will call upon you.'

'By God, sir, you'd not find anyone to undertake the task.'

'Now, lads,' Byron interrupted.

'I shall fight him,' Webster cried, getting up and thumping the table,
‘I
am determined on it. I shall fight him, or my name is not Wedderburn Webster.'

'Is it really
Wedderburn
Webster?' Hobhouse inquired around a yawn.

1 shall fight him,' Webster shouted, apparently trying to convince himself.