The Forest (117 page)

‘Thousands of cars?’ she suggested.

‘Yes. But ninety per cent of people in cars never go further than fifty feet from the road. The new influx of bicycles may prove more damaging. We’ll see.’ Dottie had noticed a lone bicyclist on her way to Grockleton’s Inclosure, riding through the trees, churning up the ground as he went. She nodded.

He smiled ruefully. ‘As always, we want tourists for their income but not for the damage they do. That’s another big subject, of course.

‘But there is a third, long-term danger – the great threat of the new century, you might say.’

‘Building?’

‘Exactly. The massive increase in housing needs, the existence of a huge area scarcely touched by housing development. Some people think we should protect the Forest by making it a National Park, which would make development extremely difficult; others, especially the commoners, fear that might take away from the power of the verderers who, for the last hundred and fifty years, have been their one protection.’ He smiled again. ‘We could discuss any or all of those.’

They did, for some time. They helped her put together a list of people to whom she should talk.

‘May I add myself to that list?’ Mrs Totton enquired. A gentle nod from the kindly historian indicated to Dottie that she should accept. ‘Good,’ said the elderly lady. ‘Come to tea on Friday. Come a little early, say at four.’

‘If you really want to get the feel of the commoners,’ Peter Pride now cut in, ‘You ought to go to a pony sale. There’s one this Thursday.’

‘That sounds colourful. Perhaps we should film it.’ She glanced at Peter Pride. ‘Will you be there?’

‘Could be. Would that be helpful?’

‘Definitely,’ she said.

It was just after the meeting had broken up and she was about to leave that she paused to ask one last question.

‘By the way,’ she said, ‘people often associate the New Forest with witchcraft. Do you think there’s any witchcraft here?’

The friendly historian shrugged. Mrs Totton smiled and said she didn’t think so. Peter Pride shook his head and said it was a lot of nonsense.

‘I just wondered,’ said Dottie.

The camera crew were busy. A scene like this was a challenge to be enjoyed. The past two days had been busy; but she’d been looking forward to Thursday.

The pony sales at Lord Montagu’s old private station of Beaulieu Road were always lively affairs. Leaving Lyndhurst by the park pale, they had driven south-east across the open ground towards Beaulieu for about three miles before the hump of the bridge over the railway line announced that they had reached the place. And as they came over the bridge, immediately on their left, there it was: a wooden railed sale ring with pens beside it.

The lorries and horse boxes started arriving early. Apart from the usual refreshment stalls, there were stands selling riding tack and another selling boots. But these were strictly on the sidelines. The sale ring was the sole point of the exercise and the pens were soon full of ponies.

And people. Forest people. Peter Pride was already there when they arrived and he strolled over, smiling. ‘You’ll see the real Forest today,’ he remarked. ‘These pony sales, the pony drifts – that’s when they drive the ponies off each area of the Forest and check them – and the point-to-point on Boxing Day: these are the real Forest events.’

‘And how do they feel about us being here?’ Dottie asked.

‘Suspicious.’ He shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

They were all arriving now: countrymen in cloth caps, shaggy hair and whiskers; women in all kinds of garb to keep out spring showers; children in brightly coloured gumboots. The stands round the ring were crowded. Children were standing on the rails inspecting the ponies. Suddenly the auctioneer was at his place beside the ring, tapping his microphone, and the sale had begun.

The ponies were let into the ring in ones or twos usually. The auctioneer’s descriptions were brief, the bidding fast. The ponies wheeled as the men tapped them, waved their hands and shouted to control them. Dottie noted with interest that within the sturdy wild ponies a strain of Arabian fineness could sometimes be seen. But not all the ponies were pure Forest either. Some quite handsome small mares came into the ring too.

The camera crew were happy. They didn’t need her. There would probably be plenty of footage to use. Peter Pride at her side was now giving her a quiet running commentary.

‘That’s Toby Pride over there. That’s Philip Furzey next to him. That’s James Furzey and that’s John Pride and his cousin Eddie Pride over there. That’s Ron Puckle. You saw him at the Verderers’ Court. And Reg Furzey, remember? That’s Wilfrid Seagull, who’s a bit devious. Then that’s my cousin Mark Pride. And …’

‘Stop,’ she begged. ‘I got the message.’ What was interesting, she noticed, was that as you looked round the ring, you could see perhaps half a dozen strong physical traits coming out in all these cousins. One Pride might not necessarily resemble another, but the Furzey standing next to him was obviously related.

‘We’re like the deer,’ said Peter. ‘We move around the Forest to breed. That’s probably why we haven’t all got three eyes.’

‘Do you ever let outsiders in? I mean, really into the Forest?’

He pointed across the ring to where a very pretty girl with a Slavic face and blond hair was standing. Her ponies were just coming into the ring.

‘They came from outside.’ He indicated a fair-haired man in one of the pens with one of the Prides. ‘They’re serious about commoning. They’re part of the Forest now.’

Dottie looked at the girl. She really was stunningly beautiful. She suddenly felt a stupid rush of jealousy.

Peter meanwhile was shaking his head in sympathy while the beautiful girl opposite was looking furious. The prices for her ponies were really shockingly low.

‘Hardly enough to pay the transport and fees,’ he sighed. ‘Something’ll have to be done.’

They watched for another half an hour. Then Dottie decided she needed something to drink. As they went over
towards the van selling refreshments, he turned to her thoughtfully. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I did some checking. Around 1880 there was a young woman in my family called Dorothy Pride. She went away to London.’

Like many Georgian mansions, Albion Park had converted very naturally into a hotel. The dining room was elegant, and although he had taken a little persuading, Peter Pride had finally agreed to come and join her for dinner that evening. Apart from the pleasure of seeing more of him, she was also glad of the chance to discuss some ideas. She had interviewed nearly a dozen people since Monday: local historians, Forestry Commission people, the owners of the Nova Foresta Bookshop, who knew every book ever written on the place; commoners, verderers, ordinary residents – everyone had a view of their own about the Forest. But now she had to start sifting them to see what approach she wanted to take.

They talked generally first though. She discovered they both liked similar music. He was a good chess player. That didn’t surprise her. She preferred cards, but no matter. Sport? Hikes. He smiled. ‘You have to like walking. You’re a Pride.’

They had to agree that the fact a Dorothy Pride left the Forest and another appeared in London didn’t really prove much.

‘If she’d married,’ Dottie explained, ‘we’d at least have her parents on the marriage certificate. But she didn’t.’

‘Never mind.’ He gave her a charming smile. ‘Perhaps we’ll adopt you.’ She thought that sounded rather nice.

In answer to her questions, he was helpful. Why did everyone hate the Forestry Commission?

‘Habit really. Remember, they took over from the old Office of Woods, the commoners’ natural enemy.’

Was the Forest going to be turned into a series of hideous conifer patches like Grockleton’s Inclosure?

‘No. In fact, after years of conifers, the Forestry Commission today is planting a mix of broad-leaf and conifers and taking quite a creative approach to ecology.’ He grinned. ‘Not that anybody’s perfect of course.’

But it was when she got him on to the subject of ecology in its broadest sense that his eyes shone and his mind really seemed to take wing.

‘Why is the New Forest so important ecologically?’ he asked her eagerly. ‘Why does it contain more invertebrates,’ he grinned, ‘than any other ecological site in Europe? Why do we have all these wonderful mires? Such a diversity of undamaged habitats? Such highly unusual ecotones? That’s the rich area where two habitats merge. You always get the largest number of species there.’ He gazed at her. ‘Well, why?’

‘Tell me,’ she smiled.

‘Because nine centuries ago a Norman king made it a game preserve, and by the luck of history woodlands have remained in their natural state, bogs have not been drained. Ecology is history.’

He looked at her triumphantly.

‘Except of course that if man had never come along, the Forest would be in its truly perfect state.’

‘No such thing. Man is part of the natural equation along with the rest of God’s creatures. Think about it. Why is the Forest biomass poor at ground level? Because the ponies and deer eat it up. Yet strangely enough, that leads to a diversity of species. Are you going to take them away? They were probably there before man came to the area. There’s no such thing as a perfect system. Only a system in balance. And even that balance is in flux. Left to themselves, animal populations, woodlands, all natural systems die and regenerate at a varying pace. Whenever you try to impose a static order on nature, it doesn’t work. The entire system changes anyway. There used to be four Needles at the end of the Isle of Wight. Now there are three. The sea washed
one away in the eighteenth century. Anyway, the entire landscape has entirely changed since the Ice Age ended, and that was only ten thousand years ago. Less, in fact.

‘An oak tree lives in a four-hundred-year time-frame. Human time-frames are always too short. So we get it wrong, and we don’t really understand the natural processes half the time.’

‘So what’s your rule for the Forest?’

‘Look for a balance. But know that nature will find a better one.’ He looked straight into her eyes. ‘I think that’s how to live, really. Don’t you?’

Dottie Pride was silent for a while.

‘Will you be at Beaulieu on Sunday?’ she asked.

She really didn’t want to go to tea with Mrs Totton. It was Friday. The last five days had given her so much to think about that the only thing she wanted to do now was to go over her notes and make her plans. She had devoted the morning to this and made good progress. She had a strong opening, but something was missing. She couldn’t quite pin it down – that magic ingredient that, in her own mind, she called the story. With Dottie it always came at the end of the process and so far it had always happened in time. Just. It had to happen by Saturday.

She really didn’t want to go to tea with Mrs Totton at all.

Mrs Totton lived in a charming whitewashed cottage with a walled garden and a small orchard behind. The cottage was set in the lush little valley near the point where the river was crossed by Boldre Bridge.

‘And I thought, as it’s a nice day, we might walk over the bridge and up to Boldre church,’ she announced, as she met Dottie at the door.

The church on its wooded knoll was a friendly building. Its dark, wooded setting did not seem eerie, but it did, Dottie thought, feel very old. There were several plaques
recording members of old Forest families on the walls, and one in particular caught her attention.

It was to Frances Martell, born Albion, of Albion Park; and most unusually, it also recorded her devoted housekeeper and faithful friend – those were the words – Jane Pride.

‘Albion Park. It’s the name of the hotel where I’m staying,’ Dottie remarked.

‘It’s also the house where I was born,’ her hostess told her. ‘I was an Albion before I married Richard Totton.’ She smiled. ‘A lot of the larger Forest houses are hotels now. On the way back she suggested, ‘if you like, I’ll tell you the story of Fanny Albion. She was tried in Bath for stealing a piece of lace.’

There was another guest for tea. A pleasant woman in her fifties called Imogen Furzey who Mrs Totton introduced as ‘a cousin of mine’. Dottie correctly guessed that in Mrs Totton’s world a cousin might be someone removed by many generations, but she did not enquire into the details. ‘She’s an artist, so I thought you’d like to meet her,’ Mrs Totton said confidently, in the manner of those who assume that anyone involved with the media must belong in the company of artists of some kind.

Imogen Furzey was a painter. ‘It runs in the family,’ she explained. ‘My father was a sculptor. And his grandfather was quite a well-known New Forest artist named Minimus Furzey.’

Dottie decided she liked Imogen Furzey. She dressed eccentrically, but with a simple elegance. The smock she was wearing had evidently been designed by herself. So, probably, had the silver bracelet she wore. Around her neck, on a silver chain that matched the bracelet, there hung a curious, dark little crucifix. ‘An heirloom,’ she said, when Dottie remarked on it. ‘I think it must be extremely old, but I don’t know where it comes from.’

The tea was delightful. It even turned out to be useful. Both Mrs Totton and Imogen Furzey were able to tell her an enormous amount about the Forest, and seemed happy to do so.