The Forest

by Edward Rutherfurd

  ‘My dear Miss Albion.’

  ‘I suggest, in future, Mr Gilpin, that you keep your own company. You are not to approach my niece in Bath. Good day.’

  If even Gilpin was reduced to speechlessness by this, Wyndham Martell was not. ‘Madam,’ he explained, calmly and politely, ‘you may abuse my mother’s family as much as you wish. If what you say of them is true, then I am very sorry for it. If it lay within my power’ – he raised his hand – ‘to take away my Penruddock ancestry by cutting off this hand, then I assure you I should gladly do it to save your niece.’

  She stared at him in silence. Perhaps he was making progress.

  ‘I discovered that I resemble an ancestor about whom I knew little, and then that this man was held in contempt and abhorrence by the family of the young lady to whom my affections had already become deeply attached and who, without explanation, then rejected me because of it. But each generation, although we honour our parents and our ancestors, is still born anew. Even the Forest grows new oaks. I am not, I assure you, Colonel Penruddock and have no wish to be. I am Wyndham Martell. And Fanny is not Alice Lisle.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘Madam, I think it is possible that I can induce Miss Albion to defend herself. Whatever your feelings, would you not even allow me to attempt to save her?’

  Gilpin chanced to glance, just then, at Mrs Pride and saw, clear as day upon her face that, whatever she knew from Fanny, she thought that Martell could save her too. ‘I beg you, consider above all the possibility of saving Fanny,’ he interposed.

  ‘A Penruddock save an Albion? Never.’

  ‘Dear heaven, Madam!’ Martell burst out in exasperation. ‘You will make your niece the inhabitant of a living tomb.’

  ‘Get out.’

  He took no notice. ‘Do you love her, Madam? Or is she loved only as the servant of this family temple?’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘I tell you, Madam, that I love Miss Albion for herself. In truth I scarcely care at this moment whether she is an Albion, a Gilpin, or’ – he suddenly found himself looking straight into the eyes of the tall, handsome woman, not unlike himself, really, who, he realized, was closely following his every word – ‘or a Pride. I love her, Madam, for herself and I intend to save her, with or without your leave. But your assistance might have greatly helped her.’

  ‘Get out.’

  At a sign from Gilpin Mr Martell, considerably heated now, withdrew with him and a few moments later the sound of Mr Gilpin’s carriage could be heard leaving.

  Adelaide sat in complete silence for some time, while Mrs Pride hovered behind her. Then, at last, whether to the housekeeper or only to herself it was hard to say, the old lady finally spoke. ‘If he saves her she’ll marry him.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, my poor mother. Poor Alice. Better she died than that.’

  It was at that moment that Mrs Pride saw what she had to do.

  Martell and Gilpin sat late together in the vicar’s library that night, discussing what to do.

  ‘I want to go,’ Gilpin said. ‘And I have no doubt Fanny would see me. But two questions remain. With the old lady so implacable, would my presence create still more confusion? And besides, it is you she needs now, Martell, not me.’

  ‘I have no qualms about the old lady,’ Martell responded. ‘I shall go first thing in the morning. But I still have to gain admittance to her. I can’t break in the door of the prison.’

  ‘You shall take a letter from me. I shall beg her to see you. I can tell her you speak with my blessing. That may help.’

  Gilpin had just sat down to write the letter and Martell begun to read a book when there was the sound of someone arriving at the door. Moments later the manservant entered and came to murmur something in Gilpin’s ear. Gilpin got up and went into the hall, disappearing for a minute or so before he returned, in a hurry. ‘Get your coat, Martell!’ he cried. ‘We shall need you. The horses are being saddled.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Martell called, as he ran up to his room to get his coat and boots.

  ‘Albion House. And there’s not a moment to lose.’

  No one could say where or how it had started, for the whole house had apparently been sound asleep. So much so, indeed, that it was only when the one manservant happened to wake on the top floor and hear a strange crackle that he realized anything was amiss. As soon as he came out of his little room, however, he found the passage already filling with thick smoke. A second later he encountered Mrs Pride, who had obviously just awoken too, in her nightclothes.

  ‘The whole house is on fire,’ she cried. ‘Quickly, find all the servants. The back stairs are clear. Take them all to the stables, then make sure none is missing.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To get the old lady. What else?’

  The smoke was already choking as Mrs Pride made her way to the main landing. She went swiftly along to the chamber where Adelaide slept, walked in and went to the bed.

  It was empty.

  She cast around the room swiftly. Nothing. She tried the next chamber, found that empty too, went to the stairs.

  Fire was licking up a tapestry. At the bottom of the stairs she saw flames coming out of the parlour. She ran down and tried to go in but the heat was too intense. She opened the main door and went swiftly out.

  ‘Has anyone seen Miss Albion?’

  The entire household was assembled in the stables now. No one was missing. The men were already gathering buckets in the hope of making a chain down to the river. She could see it would be useless but did not try to dissuade them.

  No one had seen the old lady.

  ‘She must have got up. She may be outside,’ offered one.

  ‘Perhaps she started it. Fell over with a lamp,’ said a housemaid.

  ‘No one is to go inside,’ ordered Mrs Pride and went back to the house.

  The roof had started to smoke, now, and flames were leaping from some of the upper windows. The cottages in Boldre had obviously seen the flames because men were running along the drive. She directed them to help with the buckets. Someone had already gone to tell the vicar.

  ‘Search for the old lady outside,’ she told the cook and the other women. ‘She may have wandered out.’

  By the time Mr Gilpin and Martell arrived the flames were leaping high from the roof and cinders poured upwards into the dark night sky. The doorway, surprisingly, was still passable, but inside there was only a strange flickering darkness.

  All searches for Adelaide had proved fruitless. No one could guess where she had gone. If to the parlour, then she must be burned to a cinder already.

  ‘She could have fallen,’ Gilpin said. ‘It is possible she is still alive.’ He glanced at Martell. ‘Well. Shall we?’

  But, as the two men dismounted, Mrs Pride was ahead of them. ‘Wait,’ she cried, ‘you don’t know where to look.’ And before anyone could prevent her she plunged again into the house.

  The flames licking round the edge of the roof gave the blank stone triangles of the gables a strange look, as though they were trying to break away from the raging heat behind them. Flames were bursting out of half the windows. It seemed almost impossible that anyone could stay alive in that furnace. Yet, a moment later, the tall form of Mrs Pride appeared at one window, then vanished and reappeared at another. Then vanished once more and did not reappear, so that Gilpin and Martell were both starting to run towards the door when, out of it, appeared Mrs Pride, striding into the flickering night, carrying in her arms a frail white burden.

  It was Adelaide. She was not burned, although her white nightdress was blackened and singed. But she was limp. And quite dead. She had apparently fallen, perhaps knocked herself out, and asphyxiated in the thick, choking smoke.

  They hadn’t a prayer, without a fire engine, of saving Albion House. The fire was a long one, for the great Tudor framework of the house burned slowly and some of the huge oak timbers, although they charred outside, did not burn through at al
l. But by the early hours the place was a great red shell and, by dawn, a glowing ruin. Albion House had fallen. It was over. And with it the two inhabitants, Francis and the house’s guardian Adelaide, had departed from the scene.

  Nor did it fail, that night, to occur to good Mr Gilpin that this accident had left Fanny Albion free, if she wished, to allow herself to be saved by Mr Martell and, remembering that other day when Francis Albion’s deep sleep had allowed him to take Fanny out to Beaulieu the vicar, shortly before midnight, gave Mrs Pride one searching look.

  But Mrs Pride’s face registered nothing as her noble profile was caught by the light of the glowing fire and the vicar wisely remembered that things were not always what they seemed in the Forest.

  The courtroom was hushed. There were three cases of theft before the judge that morning. The accused, each sitting with a beadle guarding them on a bench, had to watch as, one after another they were made to stand forward for trial.

  First came a young man who had held up an elderly gentleman and relieved him of his money and a gold watch. He had a mass of curly black hair and as a boy he must have resembled Nathaniel Furzey. But if he had once been a mischievous boy, there was little sign of it now. He stared ahead, dully and hopelessly. It did not take the jury long to find him guilty. He was sentenced to hang.

  The poor girl of sixteen who had stolen a cooked ham to feed her family was let off more lightly. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, those observing her could see that she might have been as pretty as one of Mrs Grockleton’s young ladies, if she had not spent three months in a filthy cell with only thin gruel and a little bread to eat. It seemed a pity to hang her. So she was merely transported to Australia for fourteen years.

  These were routine cases. Although tragic for the families of the condemned, they were not especially interesting.

  But the case of the young lady accused of stealing a piece of lace was quite another matter. The back of the court was crowded. The jury sat up with interest. The lawyers in their black coats and wigs watched her curiously. Why, even the judge had stopped looking bored.

  If the case evoked their interest and the young lady their curiosity, this was nothing to the impression made when, the judge asking who represented the accused, the young lady calmly replied: ‘If it please Your Lordship, I have no lawyer. I intend to represent myself.’

  This was met with a murmur all round the courtroom. She really had their attention now.

  For anyone who had seen Fanny Albion a week before, the change in her now was remarkable. She was dressed simply in a white dress whose fashionable high waist gave the wearer a look of particular chastity. Yet a glance at the lace fringe, the satin sash and her silken shoes told you that Miss Albion, although modest, was obviously rich. And if, under the dress, there hung a curious little wooden crucifix that had once belonged to a peasant woman, no one but Fanny and Mr Gilpin knew it was there.

  She was quiet and confident as she was led to her place, and when the charge was read out and she was asked how she pleaded, her answer came in a clear, firm voice. ‘Not guilty.’

  A glance around the courtroom told her she was well supported. The Grockletons were there. Mr Gilpin, who had urged her to tell the truth in the simplest way, was sitting next to them. Then Mrs Pride. How earnestly the housekeeper had urged her, the day before: ‘You must save yourself, Miss Fanny, after everything that has happened. You have your own life to lead now.’ But it was the other figure, smiling at her, who had asked her to marry him – it was Wyndham Martell who had made her promise to fight, at last, when he begged her: ‘Do it, dear Fanny, for me.’

  The prosecution’s case was straightforward. First, the shop assistant was called. She stated that she had watched the defendant for some time, seen her bag open, seen her inspecting the lace and drop a piece into the bag, which she then closed before making her way swiftly out of the shop. The shop assistant described how she had run after the thief, stopped her outside and how, with the manager present, the lace had been found in Fanny’s bag.

  ‘What did the accused say when confronted with this theft?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  The court buzzed for a moment, but the judge called for silence and told Fanny that she could cross-question the witness.

  ‘I have no questions, My Lord.’

  What did this mean? People looked at each other.

  The manager was called. He confirmed the events. Again Fanny was offered the chance to question him. She declined.

  A woman who had witnessed the confrontation gave her testimony. Still Fanny did not challenge anything. Mr Grockleton was looking concerned, his wife ready to spring out of her seat. Mrs Pride’s lips were pursed.

  ‘I call the accused, Miss Albion,’ the prosecuting lawyer announced.

  He was a small, plump man. The tabs of his starched lawyer’s collar moved back and forth against his thick, fleshy neck when he spoke. ‘Would you please tell the court, Miss Albion, what took place on the afternoon in question.’

  ‘Certainly.’ She spoke gravely and clearly. ‘I proceeded round the shop exactly as the court has heard.’

  ‘Your bag was open?’

  ‘I was not aware of it, but I have no reason to doubt that it was.’

  ‘You came to the table on which the lace was displayed? And do you deny that you took a piece of lace, dropped it in your bag, and went towards the door?’

  ‘I don’t deny it.’

  ‘You do not deny it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You stole the lace?’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘The same piece of lace that was found in your bag outside the shop, as described by the manager and a witness?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The lawyer looked a little puzzled. He glanced at the judge, shrugged. ‘My Lord, members of the jury, there you have it from the mouth of the accused. She stole the lace. The prosecution rests its case.’ He returned to his place, murmured something to his clerk about the foolishness of women trying to defend themselves without lawyers and awaited the defence, as the judge indicated to Fanny that she might proceed.

  The court was absolutely silent as Fanny stood before them. ‘I have only one witness to call, My Lord,’ she declared. ‘That is Mr Gilpin.’

  Mr Gilpin took the witness stand with great dignity; he confirmed he was the vicar of Boldre, the holder of various degrees, the author of certain well-respected works and that he had known Fanny and her family all her life. Asked to describe her position in life, he explained that she was the heiress to the Albion estate and a considerable fortune. Had she ever been short of money to spend, she asked him, and he replied that she had not.

  Requested to describe her character, he did so very fairly, explaining the nature of her somewhat quiet life and her devotion to her father and her aunt. How was it, she asked him, that she had chanced to go to Bath? He himself, he told the court, had arranged with the Grockletons that they should take her there for a change of air. In his judgement she had spent too long living in seclusion with the two old people in Albion House.

  ‘How would you describe my state of mind at that time?’

  ‘Melancholy, listless, abstracted.’

  ‘When you heard that I had been accused of theft, were you surprised?’

  ‘Astonished. I did not believe it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, knowing you as I do, the idea that you should steal anything is inconceivable.’

  ‘I have no further questions.’

  The prosecution bounced up now and rolled towards the vicar. ‘Tell me, Sir, when the defendant says that she stole a piece of lace, do you believe her?’

  ‘Most certainly. I have never known her tell an untruth in her life.’

  ‘So she did it. I have no further questions.’

  The judge looked at Fanny. It was up to her now.

  ‘I may address the court on my own behalf, My Lord?’

  ‘You may.’

  She bowed her h
ead and turned towards the jury.

  The twelve members of the jury watched her carefully. They were tradesmen, mostly, with a couple of local farmers, a clerk and two craftsmen. Their natural sympathies were with the shopkeeper. They felt sorry for the young lady, but couldn’t see how she could be innocent.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ Fanny began, ‘it may have surprised you that I did not seek to contradict a word of the evidence given against me.’ They did not say anything but it was plain that it had. ‘I did not even try to suggest that the assistant in the shop had made a mistake.’ She paused for only a moment. ‘Why should I do so? These are good and honest people. They have told you what they saw. Why should anyone disbelieve them? I believe them.’

  She gazed at the jury, now, and they at her. They were not sure where this was leading, but they were listening carefully.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury, I would ask you now to consider my situation. You have heard from Mr Gilpin, a clergyman of the highest repute, as to my character. I have never stolen anything in my life. You have also heard as to my fortune. Even if I were inclined to a life of crime, which God knows I am not, is there any reason why I should not have paid for a piece of lace? My fortune is large. It makes no sense.’ Again she paused to let this sink in.

  ‘I now ask you to remember the testimony as to what occurred when I was confronted outside the shop. It seems that I said nothing. Not a word. Why should that be?’ She looked from face to face. ‘Gentlemen, it was because I was so astonished. Honest people told me I had taken a piece of lace. The evidence was before my eyes. I could not deny it. I did not suppose them to be lying. They were not. I had taken the lace. I say I took it now. Yet I was so astonished that I did not know what to answer. And I tell you very truly, I scarcely have known how to answer for my actions ever since. For I must ask you to believe: I did not know that I had done so. Gentlemen, I make no denial, I simply tell you, I was unaware that I had dropped that piece of lace into my bag. I was never more astonished in my life.’ She looked at the judge, then back to the jury.