The Forest

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Women were always forgiving Minimus. They had been all his life. Minimus, the smallest, the last child of a large family, the pet, the one who could get away with the things his brothers and sisters never could. He was so charming that women could forgive him anything. Men, especially husbands, did not always forgive Minimus. Nor did fathers.

  His family had not been shocked when Minumus became an artist. They were all talented. His grandfather Nathaniel had taken up the law and become a solicitor in Southampton. His father had also followed the legal profession but graduated to London and prospered. His eldest brother was a surgeon, the next a professor. Two of his sisters had married rich men in the city, and it was these two who had provided Minimus with the modest income that allowed him to follow his inclinations without any financial worries.

  Three years ago Minimus had come to the Forest and decided he liked it. He was not the first artist of his time to do so. If Gilpin in the last century had written of the picturesque beauty of the Forest, numerous artists and writers had come to visit in recent years. The author, Captain Marryat, whose brother had bought a house on the old smuggling route known as Chewton Glen, had even immortalized the area in his The Children of the New Forest twenty years before. ‘Is it the play of the light on the heath or the beauty of the oaks that brings you artists here?’ one enthusiastic lady had once asked Minimus.

  ‘Both, but principally it’s the railway,’ he had replied.

  The fact that the Forest was full of humble Furzeys who were undoubtedly his relations neither embarrassed nor even interested Minimus. About all social matters he had a reckless innocence. It was not that he ignored social conventions: he only had the vaguest idea of their existence. If something felt agreeable, Minimus usually did it and he was genuinely surprised when people became angry. This included his relationships with women.

  Minimus did not set out to seduce women. He found them delightful. If they were charmed by his boyish innocence; if they thought him poetic and wanted to mother him; or if perhaps he found himself suddenly drawn to some pretty young woman: to Minimus these were all wonders of nature. He scarcely stopped to think whether they were ladies or farm girls, married or unmarried, experienced or innocent. All things, to Minimus, were wonderful. He could not really see why the whole world did not operate in this carefree way.

  He favoured the western side of the Forest, finding himself a pleasant little cottage near Fordingbridge which he had set about furnishing with gusto. The walls were hung with his own paintings and watercolours; an annexe he built on contained a studio and a study already filled with specimens of plants and insects, in which he took a scholarly interest. But the possession that gave him most delight was in the bedroom upstairs.

  He had found it when he was walking near Burley one day. He had noticed an old cottage, badly damaged by a fire, which a group of men were preparing to demolish. Always curious, he had gone inside. Upstairs, exposed to the open sky, covered with ash and charred rafters, he had discovered the shape of a broken bed. Broken but not destroyed. The dark old oak had survived the fire. Cleaning off the ash, he had seen that the rustic piece was magnificently carved. And by the time the men had brought the thing downstairs for him, Minimus realized that he had stumbled on a treasure. Squirrels and snakes, deer and pony, the thing was alive with every creature of the Forest.

  ‘This must be preserved,’ he declared, and for a few shillings he both purchased it and had it carted to his own cottage where he restored it for his own use. So Puckle’s bed found a new home.

  Mrs Albion had been waiting for him in the church, now, for some time. But she knew better than to be cross. Minimus was always late. In the cavernous space, with the warm light filtering in through the richly coloured windows, she had time to reflect on why her daughter Beatrice had chosen to marry Minimus Furzey. He was almost ten years younger than Beatrice was. And she had had to face her father’s bitter rage.

  ‘She only wants him because she thinks she’ll never get a husband,’ Colonel Albion had fumed.

  ‘She is nearly thirty-five,’ Mrs Albion had gently pointed out.

  ‘The man’s a common adventurer.’

  The fact that Minimus was of the same family as some of his humblest tenants could not be expected to please Albion, kindly landlord though he was. It upset the order of things. With neither a proper occupation, nor any income except his sisters’ charity, you couldn’t possibly deny that he was an adventurer.

  Yet Mrs Albion knew perfectly well that Minimus hadn’t married for that reason at all. The amount of money her husband had been going to settle upon Beatrice was quite modest, and the fact that he had refused to do so had meant very little to Minimus. Her own suspicion was that Furzey had been a good deal less interested in marrying Beatrice than she had been in marrying him.

  ‘The damn fellow just sees her as a free housekeeper,’ the Colonel had once muttered, and Mrs Albion suspected this might not be far from the truth. Certainly they lived in the most extraordinary manner, with only a woman coming from outside to cook and clean. Even the meanest shopkeeper in Fordingbridge had a servant or two living in.

  But what, she wondered, had Beatrice seen in him? As if in answer to her question, the door of the church opened and there, with the golden sunlight behind him, stood Minimus Furzey.

  ‘You are alone, aren’t you?’ he enquired as he shut the door.

  ‘Yes. Quite.’ She smiled and, just for a moment, had to fight down an idiotic little fluttering of her own heart as he came towards her.

  He looked about the church. ‘Strange place to meet.’ His musical voice made a brief echo that quickly died away in the surrounding silence. ‘Do you like it?’

  The new church which had replaced the eighteenth-century structure on Lyndhurst’s hill was a tall, ornate, redbrick Victorian affair with a tower. The tower had only just been completed and it now rose, a monument to the age’s commercial pride and respectability, over the oak trees of the old royal manor at the heart of the Forest.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She didn’t like to say either way, in case he didn’t approve.

  ‘Hmm. The windows are fine, don’t you think?’ The two that he indicated, one at the east end, the other in the transept, were certainly impressive. They had been designed by Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite painter who had been a visitor to the Forest in recent years. With their huge, bold forms, they were very striking. ‘Those two figures,’ he pointed to the transept window, ‘were actually done by Rossetti, you know, not Burne-Jones.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked at them. ‘I suppose you know all these artists personally.’

  ‘I do as it happens. Why?’

  ‘It must be …’ she was going to say ‘so interesting’, but that sounded so banal she stopped herself.

  The light from the transept window just caught his fair hair. ‘I love the fresco,’ he said with a smile.

  The huge painting of The Wise and Foolish Virgins by Rossetti’s friend Leighton dominated part of the interior. The bishop had been concerned that the Pre-Raphaelite images were too ‘popish and ornamental’, but they had been allowed all the same. So they stood below the wise and foolish virgins, admiring both.

  ‘I asked you here,’ Mrs Albion said, ‘to talk about Beatrice.’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I want you to do.’

  Bognor Grockleton was in a cheerful mood. As he passed his claw-like hand over his pale, clean-shaven face to wipe off the beads of perspiration, he was smiling contentedly.

  To appreciate Bognor Grockleton – he was named after the seaside resort where his parents liked to go on holiday – it was necessary to understand that he meant well. Perhaps there was something of the missionary in him, or perhaps it was the genetic legacy of his grandmother who, after leaving Lymington, had lived to a formidable old age in Bath; but whatever it was that drove Bognor Grockleton relentlessly forward, he always acted in the belief that the world was there to be improved. Few people, in the Victorian age, w
ould have disagreed with him.

  He had been trying to improve the Forest ever since he came there. It was natural that he should soon have found an ally in the Deputy Surveyor. The two men in fact were very different. To Cumberbatch the Forest was a material resource like a coal mine or a gravel pit. The Forest folk were a nuisance. If he could have chained them like galley slaves or culled them like the deer, he probably would have. To Grockleton, the Forest folk needed to be helped. Many of them lived in miserable little cottages with only an acre or two. It was primitive. Even the best sort, like the Prides of Oakley, only made their modest living because they had the run of the Forest, and that was a terrible waste of resources. Once the Forest was economically run though, there would be work for many of them in timber production. A few of the larger farms round the Forest edge would doubtless survive. The factories and enterprises growing up in Southampton and the local market towns like Fordingbridge and Ringwood should absorb the rest. The new productive world was going to be so much better. Once the Forest people saw this, they would understand.

  The visit to the House of Lords in London had been interesting, but though the Select Committee had not reported yet, he had little doubt of the outcome. The plantations would continue. They had to. This was progress.

  He’d been glad when Cumberbatch had offered him young George Pride as a guide this afternoon. If old Pride represented the past, his son George was the future. The job he’d taken was a good one. The keepers and under-keepers were no longer needed now the deer had gone, but there were several positions, known as woodsmen, looking after the plantations, which brought a cottage with them. Young George might be working for Cumberbatch, but he lived on the Forest and he was well paid.

  ‘He’ll be very anxious to please you,’ Cumberbatch had remarked with a grim smile. On his return from London the Deputy Surveyor had summoned George to his office and informed him bluntly: ‘You may not be able to control your father, but I wasn’t pleased to see him at the Committee. I’ll be watching you,’ he told him. ‘One false move, any hint of disloyalty, and you’re out.’

  So when Grockleton approached the meeting place, he found the young man practically standing to attention. This alone would have made him well disposed towards George; but even without this reception he would probably have been in a sunny mood.

  Because they were meeting at Grockleton’s Inclosure.

  It was a fine thing to have a building or a street bear your name. But when this inclosure had been made a few years ago and Cumberbatch had announced it would be named after him, Grockleton had realized with a sense of wonder that this was something more: a whole wood, a feature on maps for generations to come. Grockleton’s Inclosure: it was his greatest pride and joy.

  It lay in the central area of the Forest, west of Lyndhurst. It covered over three hundred acres. But best of all, as far as Grockleton was concerned, was the timber with which it was planted. For Grockleton’s Inclosure was nearly all Scots pine.

  They had been planting fir trees in the Forest for half a century. Usually they were used as a nurse crop to protect young oak or beech from the wind. Though great firs would sometimes be grown as masts for ships, it was oak and beech that the Navy really needed. Or used to need. For wooden ships were giving place to ships of iron. Buckler’s Hard made ships no more; its pleasant building yards were all grassed over, its cottages let to artisans and labourers.

  Since 1851 the new plantations had contained a different mix of trees. Slow-growing, broadleaved oak and beech, whose wood was hard, had given way to softwood trees, quick-growing cash crops of Scots pine and other conifers. Though recent, this process had already begun a subtle change in the character of the Forest. The ancient, gentle pattern of oak grove and heath was becoming interrupted by the straight-edged military lines of the fir plantations, dark green all winter. Further, the pines would spread, growing here and there on the open heath, or even sending up stunted seedlings on the acidic bogs.

  What pleased Grockleton most of all about his plantation, however, was its wondrous efficiency. ‘See how close-planted they are, Pride,’ he remarked with satisfaction. The trees were so closely set that you would be constantly brushed by their needles if you tried to walk between them. ‘All the goodness of the ground goes into them. There is no waste.’ The greensward and undergrowth between the spreading oaks had always seemed wasteful to Grockleton. Beech plantations were better: the ground under the beech woods was mostly moss. But under the fir trees there was neither light nor space. Nothing grew, not even grass and moss. It was lifeless. ‘That is the utility of the pine plantation, Pride,’ he explained to the woodward. ‘A great improvement.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said George.

  They went along the path through the plantation and admired its wonderful uniformity. When the Commissioner was finally satisfied, he announced that he wished to make a tour of the northern part of the Forest. So, walking their horses across the open heath, they made their way northwards.

  George Pride was a pleasant-looking young man. His fresh, clean-shaven face was framed by a soft fringe of beard that ran down the line of his jawbone and under his chin. He seemed willing and eager. This was a good opportunity to educate him and Grockleton did not fail to make use of it.

  ‘You’ll find me very straightforward, Pride,’ he explained. ‘And I like people who are straightforward with me.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said George.

  ‘The Office of Woods,’ said Grockleton, as they descended from a tract of high ground towards the stream known as Dockens Water, ‘is making great improvements in the Forest.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said George.

  ‘I’m glad you agree,’ remarked Grockleton. So many did not. The state of the Forest roads was a typical example. When the old turnpike roads had started falling into disrepair around the middle of the century, it was usually the local parish councils, in most parts of England, who had taken over responsibility for repairing them. But would the New Forest villages cooperate? Not at all. And when people like himself and the gentlemen from the Office of Woods had protested, what had the Forest people replied? ‘If the Office of Woods wants roads, let the Office of Woods pay for them. We don’t need them.’ What could you do with such people?

  ‘We must all move with the times, Pride.’

  They forded the stream. Ahead of them rose a long heathery slope at the crest of which lay the stretch of open heath known as Fritham Plain. Here and there Grockleton could see cattle grazing, and as they came out on to the plain, he counted a dozen ponies. He sighed. The commoners and their stock: men like George’s father were so wedded to these useless animals. The cows he could understand, but the sturdy little ponies hardly seemed worth keeping. About the time of the Deer Removal Act the queen’s husband, Prince Albert, had lent an Arabian stallion for a few seasons to breed with the local mares. One could sometimes see a trace of Arabian in some of the ponies now, but the experiment hadn’t yielded much. His friend Cumberbatch, for some reason, had interested himself in the ponies and introduced some fresh mares from other places. But the stocky creatures still looked ugly to Grockleton.

  ‘We mustn’t blame men like your father for wanting to keep their stock on the Forest you know, Pride,’ he said kindly. ‘It’s a way of life that has to go, but we must be patient.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said George.

  ‘There were some new plantations planned up here, I believe,’ Grockleton continued. ‘I want you to show me where.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said George. ‘This way.’

  There was no question, Minimus Furzey considered: the northern Forest was another world. There were individual vantage points, of course, in the wide tracts below Lyndhurst, from which you might enjoy some fine views. But as you made your way northwards up the rising ground above Lyndhurst and went past Minstead and climbed the high slope up to Castle Malwood, you realized that you had come out on to a broad ridge that swept westward right across to Ringwood. Below the ridge, in
descending shelves, the southern Forest spread out; but above, in a huge north-western triangle, a high, heather-clad plateau extended for a dozen miles all the way past Fordingbridge and up to Hale.

  This was the table-land that Minimus Furzey loved. Up here in its airy silences, under the open sky, a huge panorama opened out beyond the plateau’s edge: eastward to the downs of Wessex, westward to the blue hills of Dorset, northward to the chalk ridges of Sarum rolling away into the distance like a sea. It was a high, bare, brown and purple place, a land in the sky, a world apart.

  This afternoon, as he often did, Minimus had chosen a pleasant spot up on the high ground to sit and sketch. He and Beatrice had walked up from their cottage together, and she had continued across the high heath while he sat down to work.

  It was delightfully warm. At his feet, Minimus noticed the bright emerald backs of the tiny Forest insects known as tiger beetles. Across the heather and gorse, he could hear a Dartford warbler, the click of a stonechat and the faint sounds of one or two other heathland birds. He had not remained alone for long, however.

  The lone gypsy caravan that had come slowly westward along the track was not an unusual sight. No one was sure when the gypsies had first appeared in the Forest. Some said it was back at the time of the Spanish Armada, some said later. But whenever it was, these strange eastern people who wandered all over Europe made a colourful addition to the Forest scene. With their brightly painted caravans and strings of horses they would pass across near Fordingbridge, then follow the ancient prehistoric tracks along the ridges below Sarum towards the horse fairs in the West Country.

  Minimus would often talk to passing gypsies. Once he had gone off with them for several days, leaving Beatrice only a note to say where he was going. He had returned with an armful of sketches and a rich vocabulary of gypsy words so that, nowadays when he talked to them, only they and he knew what was being said.