Daphne du Maurier: Hungry Hill

He looked upon it as a duty, something he owed to his country and to the Almighty, to glean the hidden wealth from Hungry Hill and to give it, at a price, to the peoples of the world. He glanced up at the portrait of his grandfather that hung above the mantelpiece in the dining-room, John Brodrick who had built Clonmere, and had been shot in the back in 1754 on his way to church, because he had tried to put down the smuggling along the coast. He knew his grandfather would have approved the starting of the mine. It would have been a matter of principle, just as it was for his grandson. Well, maybe the people would shoot him in the back as they had done the first John Brodrick, and maim his cattle, and set fire to his crops, but they would never frighten him from doing what he believed to be his duty. Smiling, he looked at each of his family in turn.

"This afternoon at Castle Andriff I signed an agreement with Robert Lumley, forming a company to work a copper mine on Hungry Hill," he said.

The young Brodricks stared back at him in silence, and he thought, with mingled pride and amusement, how like they were to one another, and how each one, from tall Henry down to the little Jane, although possessing features and a personality of their own, had the one characteristic in common, the unmistakable Brodrick quality of knowing themselves to have more brains and breeding than the usual run of their fellow-creatures.

He remembered his father Henry, who had broken his back out hunting at Duncroom, and how, when they would have carried him on a hurdle to a neighbouring cottage, to place him on a bed, he cursed them, saying, "God damn you, let me die in the open, in my own time," and they waited there, five hours under the rain, while he stared up at the sky.

And here was his own boy, Henry, twenty-one next year, with that same look of easy confidence in his dark eyes, as he smiled across the table at his father, the only one with whom he had already discussed the mining prospects, and who had shown his usual gay enthusiasm and willingness to help.

There was Barbara, twenty-three, and the eldest of the family, her soft brown hair falling over her forehead, which was wrinkled a little as she thought over the news, for Barbara needed time to consider when any new project was put before her; she was conservative by nature and mistrusted changes. Eliza, her sister, and a year younger than herself, stouter, fairer, and more like her dead mother in appearance, was already speculating upon what the future should bring for herself. Father would make a fortune, of course, and then perhaps they need not live all the year at Clonmere, but could visit Bath during the season, and even the Continent perhaps, as Lord Mundy's daughters had done a year ago.

The Continent passed through Henry's mind too, as he watched his father's face. He loved Clonmere, he loved his family, and he believed that the sinking of the mine would be a sound proposition, workable in every way, and a benefit to the people and the country. If it meant that he would be able to go to France, to Italy, to Germany, to Russia, to see all the pictures and to hear all the music that he had heard discussed in Oxford, why then, the sooner Hungry Hill was open to pick and shovel and machinery the happier he would be.

His brother John stared out of the window, down to the creek below the house. He and his sister, Jane were the darkest of the family. There was something almost Spanish about their olive skins and their warm brown eyes, a southern gypsy quality that the others lacked.

Mines upon Hungry Hill, he thought, noise and machinery to drive away the wild birds and the rabbits and the hares, and a crowd of wretched devils working underground day after day, glad of the employment to keep themselves from starving, and cursing the master who gave it to them, all in the same breath. He knew how it would be. He had seen it happen before in Doonhaven, whenever his father talked to the people about progress. They were all smiles and civility to his face, and as soon as his back was turned they muttered amongst themselves, and went and broke down a fence, or stole a cow, or lamed one of his horses, in a strange, impotent resentment.

Oh, well, father would have his mine, and they would all become millionaires, and that was that. As long as he, John, was not asked to supervise the work at the mine, or take up any position of responsibility, he did not care, and if they would leave the summit of Hungry Hill untouched so that he could exercise his dogs there, and lie on his back in the sun, and be left alone without feeling all the time that his father was expecting him to do something, then the new company could sink a hundred mines for all he cared.

And Jane, who at eight years old was already the beauty of the family, petted but unspoilt, the darling of them all, with her lively imagination and strange fancies- Jane saw a great stream of copper running down the side of Hungry Hill, the colour of blood, and a crowd of miners dabbling in it like little black devils, with her father seated upon a throne like God in the midst of them.

"When do you propose to start the work, sir?" asked Henry.

"Within the course of the next month," replied his father. "The preliminary excavations may begin even sooner. I have someone coming over from Bronsea to supervise matters, and he will bring an engineer with him. We ought to be underground before midsummer, and with luck should have three months' trial of the mine before the autumn sets in. We don't want to lose the top prices, if we have anything to sell. But the return for the first two years is bound to be small, while we are paying off expenses."

"What about the labour, father?" said Barbara.

"I have engaged a Cornishman named Nicholson to be head captain of the mine," he answered, "and he will, of course, bring some of his own people over with him.

After that-well, we shall see."

There was a pause for a moment, and then Henry, glancing sideways at his father, said gently, "There will be a certain amount of resentment, sir."

John Brodrick rose from the table, and cut himself another slice of pig from the sideboard.

"Naturally there will be resentment," he said shortly. "There was resentment when the Post Office first came to Doonhaven, there was resentment when the Dispensary was opened. I expect nothing else. But when the people here learn about the wage-packets that the Cornishmen put into their pockets every week, then we shall hear another story. It's been a hard winter, hasn't it? Perhaps they will think about the winter to come.

I rather believe they will. And I shall get them coming up to Hungry Hill, asking for employment."

His son John frowned, picking at the table-cloth with his fork.

"Well, John, what is your opinion?"

The boy flushed. He was never very articulate in his father's presence.

"Yes, sir," he said slowly, "they will come to you for employment all right. But they will be bitter about it.

They will think, "Why should we be obliged to him to keep us from starving?"' It will make a twist in their minds, don't you see? And they will do their best to obstruct the work of the mine, even though it feeds them."

"You appear to sympathise with them," said his father.

"No, sir," stammered John; "it's only that, you see, even now, after all this time, we are looked upon as interlopers; there is no denying it."

"That is ridiculous," answered his father impatiently; "we belong to the country as much as they do. Why, your great-grandfather lived here, and your great-uncle before him. There have been Brodricks in. the country back into the sixteenth century."

"Why did they shoot my great-grandfather, then?" asked John.

"You know very well why they shot him-because he believed in doing his duty to God and the King, and upholding the law. Smuggling was an offence, and he was determined to put an end to it."