Haggard (8 page)

'Seven o'clock,' Haggard said,
‘I
'm for bed early tonight.'

He mounted his mule, rode up the slope. So Mistress Prentice and Mistress Allison had let it be known that they would not recognise their master's whore. He wondered if they would have the courage to refuse a dinner invitation. It would be amusing to find out.
A
thought, as usual followed by another. They were his friends. He had grown up with their husbands. And now he was prepared to throw them over for a chit of a girl, not yet seventeen, whose body excited him. Was he then so much of a fool?

He raised his head, and gazed at the verandah. Emma stood there, auburn hair fluttering in the afternoon breeze, wearing a loose pale green house gown. This was normal, and usual. But her demeanour was not normal. Absent was the habitual quiet suspicion of all those around her. As he came closer she ran down the steps with a girlish energy he had not previously observed. 'Mr. Haggard,' she cried. 'Mr. Haggard.'

He threw the reins to Absolom, stepped down, thrust the dogs out of the way. 'What's amiss?'

'Amiss,' she laughed. 'Naught's amiss, Mr. Haggard. I'm certain sure. I'm with child.'

He frowned at her. 'How can you be certain?'

'Because I have been on the plantation better than two months, Mr. Haggard, that's why. I knew, I was sure, four days ago, but I made myself wait until grinding was done. Until there could be no chance. Until you'd be free to understand.' She put both arms round his neck. 'Your child, Mr. Haggard. Your child.'

He swept her from her feet, tucked his arm under her knees. He had lifted her like this on that first day, when she had twisted and moaned and blood had dripped down his side. He walked towards the verandah steps.

'Are you happy about it?'

'Happy. You'll love me now, Mr. Haggard. Now and always.'

‘I
loved you already, now and always, Emma.'

'Aye, maybe you did. But now I'm sure of it too. Love me, Mr. Haggard. Love me now. Please.'

He hesitated at the foot of the steps. 'What of the child?'

‘I
t cannot be harmed, Mr. Haggard. I know it. Love me now, Mr. Haggard. I beg of you. And let me love you.'

She had never said that before. She had never been so excited before. And he had had no time for her for over a week. He carried her up the stairs and across the hall. Gone was her modesty. She kissed his cheek and bit his ear as they climbed the stairs. She slipped from his arms before they were properly inside the bedroom, threw off her gown, helped him to undress. She knelt to kiss his penis and bring him hard, moaned as he gently kneaded her breasts, lifted her again and laid her on the bed, stooped to kiss her in turn. She spread her legs wide and cried out in delight. To her all-consuming beauty there was added a throbbing passion he had never suspected her to possess.

'Slowly, Mr. Haggard, oh slowly,' she whispered, expelling her breath in a long gasp as he sank into her. Her nostrils dilated, her mouth sagged open, her hair scattered to either side of her head. It was how he liked to see her, the composed loveliness of her face, so watchful, so suspicious, disintegrating into pure womanhood, knowing nothing but desire and delight. But never had he seen it quite so possessed, never had he been so possessed himself. Her legs curled around his thighs and he felt her nails scraping down his back, causing him to jerk with pain even as he climaxed, and her own breath once again hissed into his ear.

'Oh, Mr. Haggard,' she said. 'Does a man feel like a woman?'

'I don't know how a woman feels,' he said. 'Or if she feels at all.'

'She feels, Mr. Haggard. Sometimes. I felt then. I want to feel again, Mr. Haggard. I want to feel always.' Her voice insisted. 'Will I feel always?'

'If you're that passionate, always.'

'I'm passionate now. I'm feeling now, Mr. Haggard. I want it again, now.'

He smiled, and kissed her
on the nose. 'You'll have to wait until after dinner.'

'You have hands, Mr. Haggard.'

Bewitched, he thought. Oh, indeed, I am bewitched. That John Haggard should lie here and masturbate a woman, that a woman should wish masturbating, that a woman should be capable of physical feelings as deep as that. And there was no pretence. She came again and again, eyes dilating and mouth sagging, body vibrating with pleasure. He knew of no woman who could possibly behave like this. It was impossible to imagine any woman of his acquaintance, Adelaide Bolton or Annette Manning, knowing such feelings, or being able to express them in words. As for Susan—but there was no room for thoughts of Susan while in Emma's arms.

And incredibly, her passion communicated itself even through his own exhaustion, left him more aware than ever before in his life, had him beaming down the table at Clara Prentice and Lucy Allison. They had not, after all, been able to resist their curiosity, or their desire to sit at Haggard's dinner table, and drink expensive wine from Haggard's crystal goblets. And now too they could inspect Emma, and sneer at her plunging decolletage, and no doubt feel their milk curdling as they estimated the cost of her gown or the value of her pearls, as if they did not already know—Mistress Bale's visit to Haggard's was common gossip all over the island.

And they were helpless before her glowing sexuality, her sparkling wit. They might exchange glances whenever she made a grammatical slip, whenever her laugh was a trifle high for breeding, whenever she revealed her ignorance of literature or politics, but they could do nothing more than sit helpless as their husbands warmed before the fire
of her beauty and her personal
ity.

While Haggard sat at the top of the table, and sipped wine, and smiled at them all. He possessed so much, and yet he felt he had never possessed anything in his life before. Even Emma had only truly come into his possession this night. But she was his now, and he could not see that ever changing. And soon she would be the mother of his child. Emma, youthful, magnificent Emma, slowly swelling. Emma, with an infant at her breast. Emma, walking her son, with Roger at her side—for she made a great show, at the least, of loving the boy—Emma.

'You'll raise your glasses,' he said, seizing his opportunity during a brief lull in the conversation. 'And drink to Miss Dearborn and myself. Emma is to become a mother.
’

To Emma,' said Arthur Prentice.

To Emma and John,' Willy hastily added.

'And to the fortunate child,' remarked Clara Prentice. 'May I ask, John, if you and Miss Dearborn will now be married?'

There was a moment's silence, then Haggard stood up. 'You'll excuse us, I'm sure,' he said. 'But I for one am exhausted after a fortnight's grinding. I think I shall go to bed.'

He left the room, climbed the stairs, slowly. He
was
very tired. Behind him he heard the hasty scraping of chairs, the mutter of conversation. And Emma's voice.

'He really wasn't strong enough for it,' she said.

Henry Suffolk waited for him in the bedchamber, helped him out of his clothes. Emma stood in the doorway.

'You'll not apologise for me again,' Haggard said. 'Not ever, under any circumstances.'

'I'm sorry. They . . . they were so upset.'

Haggard got into bed. Henry Suffolk released the mosquito netting, allowed it to cloud down outside the bed, shrouding the occupant behind a white gauze curtain.

1 saying good-night, Mr. John,' he said, and left, to be immediately replaced by Elizabeth Lancashire, Emma's maid.

‘I’m
sure Mistress Prentice meant no harm.' Emma stood with her arms above her head as Elizabeth released the gown and began to remove the petticoats beneath.

'She's not a fool,' Haggard said.

'Well, if she meant harm, it was directed at me. They hate me. All of them.'

'Do you suppose they'd hate you any less as my wife?'

'Why
, no. But . . ." She bit her lip, turned away as Elizabeth began to unfasten her corset.

How lovely she was. How lovely she would become. Sixteen years old, and with all of her life crammed into the past two months. But there was so much more to come. He looked through the netting at the long, slender legs, the absolutely smooth curve of her buttocks, almost brushed by the long red hair, as she tilted her head back to have the carcanet taken from her throat. She faced the mirror on the far wall, and he could at the same time look at the swell of hair which thatched her groin, and the sudden thrust of breasts; these she was gently massaging underneath, where the corset had cut her. And the face, so young, and yet so strong. She would make any man a superb wife.

He rolled away from her, violently, stared out of the window at the night. But he'd not marry again. He had said that, when they had sealed Susan's coffin. Well, no doubt many a man made a similar oath. It was not one he'd be expected to keep. But why-should he marry again? It was not necessary. He owned this girl, far more than he ever could own a wife. And did John Haggard,
the
Haggard, give a damn for the opinions of anyone in Barbados, even his own employees? Or especially his own employees.

So then, are you a bad man, John Haggard? It was not a question he had asked himself for two months. But it could not be begged. He knew in his heart that no slave owner could honestly be considered a
good
man. So why pretend? He was John Haggard. He owned, and he bought, and he ruled. This was best for him, and it was best for those with whom he came into contact. But for him, Emma Dearborn would have been a lump of putrefying flesh hanging from the end of a rope, by now. He could not do more for her than that.

Or perhaps, he thought, I am afraid to share, anything more than my body and my lust, with any woman, ever again. Because I shared with you, Susan, and the grief was more than I could bear.

And why had the question arisen at all? Because of those silly hags at dinner. They were married. They had to be, to secure their own futures. Overseers' wives. Did their opinions count? Did the opinions of anyone in Barbados count? He was John Haggard. He had turned his back upon Barbadian society, Barbadian opinion, even at the highest level. Because
he
was the highest level. It was only necessary for Emma always to remember that, to know that she had but to please him and her future was far more secure than it could ever be for a wife who sought to follow Susan.

A discovery she seemed to make for herself, soon enough. The child gave her a confidence she had never previously possessed. It was an easy pregnancy, a simple delivery. She wished to call the babe Alice, after her own mother, and Haggard was content to please her. Soon enough she was pregnant again; and this time they named the boy Charles, after her father. Then Haggard called a halt, demanded she be careful. Three children were enough for any father, two for any mother. He did not suppose she could be lucky all her life.

Certainly she was busy enough. Apart from the children, and she insisted upon feeding them both herself, without conspicuous detriment to her hard-muscled body, she set to work in her own way to make herself a worthy Haggard woman. She already knew how to read, and now she made a study of every book in his library. She spent hours in the flower garden, to the delight of the yard boys, and other hours closeted with Cook in the kitchen, to no great purpose, as Haggard would no longer even entertain his own staff to dinner.

For in a strange way, as Emma appeared to grow more content with her lot, with a life built entirely around Haggard, so Haggard grew more discontented. Not with Emma. Far from it. But with Barbadian society, and even Barbados itself. The rejection had been mutual, and by the end of the American War was complete. Barbadian society could never forgive him for having killed Malcolm Bolton, for having gone his own way in the crisis of that same year. And Haggard did not wish to be forgiven. But his gnawing distaste for Barbados itself did stem from Emma. From the tales she told of England, of snow on the Derbyshire hills, of long, cosy nights before the fire, of the immensity of London, an impression gained on her brief visit to the metropolis while awaiting transportation. She made England sound so much more interesting, even exciting, than Barbados could ever be. Slowly he began to realise that he wanted to leave, wanted to travel, wanted to remove himself to a society where he would not be hated, and where he would not have to hate, himself.

But what an incredible idea. A Haggard, leaving Haggard's Pen
n? Father would turn in his grav
e. But Susan would understand. He stood before the white marble vault, his tricorne in his hand, the trade wind whipping at his hair. Over the last few years he had been able to do this again, where for too long he had shunned the cemetery as if it were haunted. But now it had a special place in his daily routine. It was incredible that Susan had been dead fourteen years, that it was ten years since he had shot down Malcolm Bolton. Ten years in which Haggard's Penn had become as socially isolated as if they all had leprosy, in which all his senior staff, driven by their wives, had gone, to be replaced by young men from England seeking their fortunes. But also ten years in which he had prospered while all others had struggled. Ten years in which Great Britain had lost a war. Ten grindings and ten ratoonings. Ten crops of maize. Ten years of exploring the delight that was Emma, of teaching her to read and write, of sharing the mystery that was her mind. Of making her his?