The Forest (75 page)

‘What do you think I should do?’ Gilpin had asked a fellow cleric. ‘I’m not talking of natural intelligence. Young Andrew Pride has quite as much of that as any of the boys you’d find at the schools in Salisbury or Winchester. I’m speaking of a rare bird, a natural scholar, a fellow who could spend a life at Oxford or Cambridge.’ He sighed. ‘I dare say Sir Harry Burrard or the Albions would pay for it if I asked them to send him away to school – if the parents agreed of course. But …’

‘You’d take him away from his family, his friends, the Forest,’ his friend had answered. ‘And if it didn’t work …’

‘Stranded like a boat on a sandbank.’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s easier in towns. If he lived in Winchester, or London …’ Gilpin mused. ‘I suppose the whole nation’s like that, though. Trees growing deep in the forests. Wonderful trees dropping thousands of acorns. One in a million is carved into a piece of fine furniture. Nature’s waste.’

‘True, Gilpin. But also England’s stock. Always plenty of it.’

So the vicar had left young Nathaniel in the little village school, after which he would doubtless grow up to enjoy a quiet Forest life. In the meantime he was mischievous.

One of the chief delights that occupied his active mind was that of playing practical jokes. Andrew liked these too, but even he was awestruck sometimes by the ingenuity of some of the jokes that Nathaniel devised. His most recent had concerned the Furzeys.

Although he had the same name as the Oakley Furzeys, Nathaniel soon came to share the Prides’ view of their neighbours. Even setting aside the dark memory of their betrayal of Alice Lisle, it seemed to the Prides that Caleb Furzey was a bit slow in the head. What intrigued Nathaniel, however, was Caleb’s imagination. For it was full of fear and superstition.

‘I always carries some salt with me,’ he assured the boy, ‘to throw over my shoulder.’ Burley he was afraid to enter, ‘on account of the witches’. He wouldn’t go up to Minstead church because he said it was haunted; and once, by mistake, he had gone round Brockenhurst church widdershins – though few Forest folk would have cared to do that – and had lived in fear for weeks. But any evil sign would set him off. If he saw a solitary magpie, he spoke to it at once; he walked carefully round ladders; and if he saw a jet-black cat with no white marking he’d be off as fast as he could. ‘Black cat: witch’s cat,’ he’d declare.

So Nathaniel had found a black cat. It was dead when he found it and it wasn’t really black, because it had some white hair under its chin. But when he’d discovered a man who knew how to stuff animals, and when he’d applied some black dye to the white patch, he reckoned the cat looked pretty good. Then he and Andrew Pride went to work.

There was nowhere that black cat didn’t appear. Walking along a forest path, Caleb would suddenly see it confronting him, turn away in horror and never see the string that jerked it quickly into the bushes. With luck he’d take another path and the boys would be able to set up an ambush there too. Next day, he’d see it at his window. Nathaniel was an artist, though. Days would pass and Caleb would think himself safe before, suddenly, the cat would appear in some new and improbable place to terrify him. Soon the whole of Oakley was out looking for the mysterious feline. It was Andrew’s father who guessed the truth, cuffed the two boys and gave the stuffed cat a discreet and decent burial. Nothing more was said about it after that and the two boys certainly never knew that when the timber merchant had told his wife about it privately the two adults had laughed until they cried.

There were other things to interest Nathaniel at Oakley, however. He had seen the Free Traders’ packhorses up at Minstead from time to time; but you couldn’t help noticing a lot more activity down at the coast near Oakley. Several times he had been aware that Andrew’s father had disappeared for the night, returning at dawn looking cheerful, leading his pony and dumping a little sack of tea on the kitchen table without a word.

One morning three riding officers had arrived at Oakley and started inspecting Pride’s pile of timber by the green. Pride had watched them with mild interest as they started dismantling it. They found this hard work; they took all morning. At noon Grockleton rode up and saw they had found nothing.

‘I hope your officers are going to put my timber back the way it was, Mr Grockleton,’ Pride remarked.

‘I don’t believe they will, Mr Pride,’ the other replied with equal coolness.

Pride and the family had restacked the timber after they had gone. No word was spoken. That was the game.

Nathaniel encountered Grockleton himself one day, however. It was about two weeks after he had been given the smallpox vaccination. He and Andrew Pride had just come out of school and, instead of turning, as they usually would, to go past Mr Gilpin’s house back to Oakley, they were walking the other way, towards Boldre church.

Their destination that day was Albion House, where Pride’s aunt was the housekeeper. Andrew had been told to pay this formidable lady a visit after school and Nathaniel had been delighted to go with him. This was the house where the young lady lived, who had persuaded him to have the vaccination. It was a big house, too, Andrew had told him: a manor house. He had never been in such a house before.

They were just going along the lane to the church when they heard the horse behind them and turned to see the tall Customs Officer riding up. As he came abreast he looked down and asked them politely where they were going.

Apart from his claw-like hands, Grockleton could make himself pleasant enough when he wasn’t looking for contraband. Hearing their destination was Albion House, he pulled a sealed letter from his coat and asked with a smile: ‘Would you boys like to earn tuppence?’

‘We each would, Sir,’ said Nathaniel, quick as a flash.

Grockleton hesitated a second, then chuckled. ‘Very well, then. This is a letter from my wife to old Mr Albion. Will you deliver it?’

‘Oh, yes, Sir,’ they both cried eagerly.

‘Then you will save me the journey.’ He reached for the money, and as he did so casually remarked: ‘Now you must see it’s delivered at once. You know how to deliver letters, I suppose?’

‘I will deliver a letter anywhere in the Forest, Sir,’ said Nathaniel firmly, ‘for tuppence.’

‘Good. Here you are then.’

He gave them the money and watched them go off. But for some reason, as if a thought had just struck him, Grockleton did not move at once but remained where he was for fully a minute, staring after them. And when Nathaniel glanced back, he saw that Grockleton was staring at him, particularly, in deep thought.

Now why, he wondered, should Mr Grockleton be doing that?

Oxford! Oxford at last. There it was, ahead of them, its spires and domes rising out of a faint morning mist that hung over the broad green meadows and the gentle river that wound past the colleges. Oxford on the River Isis, as the Thames is called on this stretch of its long journey. It was useless to pretend they were not excited.

‘And to think, Fanny, my sweetest, dearest friend,’ cried her cousin Louisa. ‘To think that we nearly did not set out at all!’

How very pretty Louisa looked today, Fanny thought with pleasure. She had always admired Louisa’s dark hair and lustrous brown eyes, and this morning her cousin was looking particularly animated. How pleasant it was, she considered, that her closest cousin should also be her best friend.

Their journey had almost been cancelled due to ill health. Not that of old Francis Albion, who had been scolded by his sister from death’s door back to his usual state, but unexpectedly by Louisa’s mother, Mrs Totton, who was to have accompanied them and who had fallen and sprained her leg so painfully that she really didn’t think she could travel. So they certainly wouldn’t have been able to go, if it hadn’t been for Mr Gilpin.

‘My wife thinks I have been sitting in Boldre for too long,’ he assured the grateful Tottons just as firmly as if it had been true. ‘She positively insists I accompany you. Remember, I was up at Oxford myself, so to visit it again is nothing but a pleasure to me.’

With the vicar as their companion there could be no doubt of the girls’ safety. ‘Indeed,’ as Fanny reminded Louisa, ‘it is really a great honour for us to travel with such a distinguished man.’ And so, in high spirits they had set off in the Albions’ best carriage to Winchester and thence up the old road that led, due north, the forty miles to Oxford.

By mid-morning they were installed in one of the city’s best inns, the Blue Boar in Cornhill, the girls sharing one room, Mr Gilpin taking another. And promptly at noon Edward Totton called for them.

Having embraced his sister and his cousin, bowed and expressed his honour that Mr Gilpin should have accompanied them and seeing that they were all eager to explore the city, Edward suggested they should make a tour forthwith.

What a delight the city was. With its broad, cobbled main streets, and its curious medieval lanes, ancient Gothic churches side by side with splendid neoclassical façades, the university had been quietly growing there for more than five centuries. Its streets were busy with all kinds of people. Tradesmen and farmers from the countryside around mixed with clerics and poor scholars, rich young men with powdered hair, stern professors in academic gowns and visitors like themselves. Here they would pass a stately gateway and porter’s lodge, like the entrance to a palace, and look into the huge cobbled quadrangle behind; there, down an alley, they would peep into some dark little yard that appeared to have been forgotten since medieval monks had used it four hundred years before.

Edward was very cheerful, the girls in high spirits; but Fanny did not fail to notice, with admiration, the role that Mr Gilpin assumed. He accompanied them in the most companionable way, but said little. Occasionally – when they came to the Bodleian Library, for instance, or the classical perfection of Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre – he would step forward and point out quietly, in his deep voice, a few of each building’s finer points. Not to do so, after all, would have been failing in his duty. When they visited his own college, Queen’s, he naturally took them round. But apart from these occasions he seemed to prefer to bring up the rear, letting Edward conduct the tour and not even allowing a hint of a frown to cross his distinguished brow when Edward got things wrong. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying himself just as much as they were, as he poked his head into familiar old nooks and crannies with a delighted ‘Aha’, to find them just as they had been fifty years before. They visited mighty Balliol College, stately Christchurch, pleasant Oriel and, at towards three o’clock, came to Edward’s own college, which was Merton.

‘We say we are the oldest college,’ he informed them.

‘Disputed.’ Gilpin chuckled.

‘The first to be built, at least,’ Edward responded with a smile. ‘In 1264. We are very proud of ourselves. The Master of the college is known as the Warden.’

Merton was certainly delightful. Its quadrangles were not large and grand, but more intimate and suggestive of its antiquity. Its chapel, however, was a very imposing affair, at the west end of which were a number of monuments and memorials. They had paused in front of a rather fine one to a Warden, Robert Wintle, who had died some decades before, and Gilpin had just begun to say, ‘A fine scholar, I remember Robert Wintle well,’ when Edward interrupted him with a happy cry: ‘Ah, here he is! I told him he’d find us at Merton.’

And to their great surprise, Mr Gilpin and the two young ladies saw an elegantly dressed man, a few years older and somewhat taller than Edward, with a pale, aristocratic face and a good head of dark hair, which had been blown a little carelessly by the breeze. Seeing Edward, he nodded and smiled, then made Gilpin and the ladies a brief, formal bow.

‘I said nothing, because I had no idea if he would come,’ said Edward. ‘He often doesn’t,’ he added. ‘This is Mr Martell.’

The introductions were quickly performed, Mr Martell bowing again, with grave politeness to Gilpin and each of the girls, though it was hard to tell whether he was really interested.

‘Martell was in his final year when I came up to Oxford,’ Edward explained. ‘He was very kind to me. He used to talk to me.’ He laughed. ‘He doesn’t talk to everyone, you know.’

Fanny glanced at Martell to see if he was going to deny this. He didn’t.

‘You are of the Dorset family of Martell, perhaps?’ Gilpin enquired.

‘I am, Sir,’ Martell replied. ‘I know nothing about the Gilpin family, I confess.’

‘My family has Scaleby Castle, near Carlisle,’ Gilpin said firmly. Fanny had never heard him say this before and looked at her old friend with new interest.

‘Indeed, Sir? You will know Lord Laversdale, perhaps.’

‘All my life. His land marches with ours.’ This having been duly noted, Gilpin glanced towards Fanny and continued more easily: ‘You know of the Albion estate in the New Forest, I dare say?’

‘I know of it, although I have never had the pleasure of seeing it,’ said Mr Martell, again with a slight bow towards Fanny. There was, she thought, a faint tinge of warmth in his manner now, but it might just have been a trick of the light in the chapel.

‘Let’s go outside,’ said Edward Totton.

One of the delights of Merton College was its setting: for its buildings backed on to the open green space of Merton Field beyond which, across the Broad Walk, lay the lovely expanse of Christchurch Meadow and the river.

They made a pleasant group as they set out into this Arcadian scene, the two girls in their long, simple dresses, Mr Gilpin in his clerical hat, the two men in their tail coats and breeches and striped silk stockings. As they were leaving the college, Edward had kept up a lively discourse, explaining how his friend came to be staying in the vicinity, what a noted sportsman he had been at Oxford, and a scholar too, it seemed. But as they started across Merton Field, his supply of conversation seemed temporarily to have dried up, and as neither Fanny nor Louisa wished to lead the conversation with the stranger, and Mr Martell himself showed no inclination to say anything, Mr Gilpin stepped in, walking beside Martell while the other three followed, listening, just behind.