‘Why Mr Grockleton, it means everything. Our dear, dear Louisa, my favourite protégée, my most talented pupil, married to the Member of Parliament – and a notable landowner – and all tied up in every conceivable way with the Burrards.’

‘And the Albions?’

‘The Albions?’ She stared at him blankly. ‘I fail to see the significance of the Albions. There’s only the two old people and …’

‘Fanny.’

‘Fanny, to be sure. Fanny. Poor girl. But please do not stray from the point. Fanny is of no importance. With Louisa and dear Mr Martell our friends, why you may be sure we shall be in the Burrards’ house in the twinkling of an eye. It will all be’ – she beamed at him – ‘so natural.’ She considered the prospect in the spirit of an explorer who has at last come in sight of a fabled land. ‘Next time Mr Martell comes here,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I shall give that ball and I truly think the Burrards might come.’

‘He had better come by autumn, then,’ the Customs officer muttered, although his wife did not hear him.

Even if she had heard him, Mrs Grockleton could have no idea what her husband meant by this cryptic statement; nor did he wish her to know. But it was this secret consideration that caused him, now, to raise a subject that had been increasingly on his mind. ‘I wonder if it has ever occurred to you, Mrs Grockleton, that the time might come when we decide to leave Lymington.’

‘Leave Lymington?’ She turned to look at him and it seemed that her eyes took a moment or two to focus upon him. ‘Leave?’

‘It is a possibility.’

‘But Customs officers are never moved, Mr Grockleton. You are here to stay.’

It was quite true, of course. A position like his led to no possibility of advancement or transfer. You kept it until you retired. ‘True, my dear. But we might choose to move.’

‘But we shan’t, Mr Grockleton.’

‘What if,’ he proceeded very cautiously, ‘I cannot say it is likely but what if, Mrs Grockleton, we were to come into money?’

‘Money? From what source, Mr Grockleton?’

‘Have I ever spoken to you, my dear, of my cousin Balthazar?’ The question was somewhat devious, since he had only invented this relative the day before.

‘I do not think so. I am sure you have not. What an extraordinary name.’

‘Not’, he said calmly, ‘if your mother was Dutch. My cousin Balthazar made a great fortune in the East Indies and retired to the north, where he lives in utter seclusion. He has no children. Indeed, I gather that I am his only kinsman. As I hear that he has a malady from which he is unlikely to recover, I think it possible that his fortune may come to me.’

‘But Mr Grockleton, why have you never spoken of him? You should go to see him at once.’

‘I think not. He greatly disliked my father although to me, as a boy, he was always kind. A year ago I wrote to him. He wrote back, fairly warmly, but said quite plainly that he did not desire any visitors. His malady, I suspect, makes him unsightly. Should he die and remember me, as I say, our circumstances will alter and I mean to retire.’

He watched her carefully, rather pleased with himself. It was clear that she believed him; and it was important that she should. For the last part of his statement was entirely true.

It had been his interview with Puckle that had finally decided him. As he watched the fellow’s obvious fear – and he had no doubt it was well founded – he could scarcely help thinking of what the forest smugglers would do to him, too, after his great attack upon them. Perhaps they would be cowed; maybe respectful; possibly even broken. But he was not so foolish as to rely upon it. No, he had considered, as the days and weeks passed, it was far more likely, one dark night, that he would be ambushed somewhere and receive a pistol shot in his head for causing them so much inconvenience. Was he prepared to wait for that? On balance, he had concluded, he wasn’t. He was brave enough to take on the smugglers, but if he won and made a small fortune from the business, then he would do as Puckle meant to do. He’d take his winnings and leave, get out, retire. No one would blame him and, frankly, he no longer cared much if they did.

As he certainly couldn’t tell his wife the truth, since she was quite incapable of keeping such a secret, it had occurred to him to invent his cousin Balthazar and the legacy as a way of preparing her for the possible change of circumstances. He watched her face, therefore, with interest; and after she had reflected a few moments, he saw her smile.

‘But, my dear husband, should this happy event transpire and you acquire a fortune, there would be no cause to leave Lymington at all. We shall be able to live here, with only a little more money, I promise you, in the greatest style. Oh, indeed …’ It was clear that prospects of future balls, graced by Burrards, Martells, perhaps even royal visitors, were entering her mind one after another, like swans landing upon a river.

‘Ah.’ This was not at all what he wanted. ‘But think of the places we could choose to live. ‘Why,’ he suggested cleverly, ‘we could even go to live in Bath.’

‘Bath? I have no wish to live in Bath.’

‘But Mrs Grockleton.’ He looked at her in astonishment. ‘You speak constantly of Bath. Surely …’

‘No, no, Mr Grockleton,’ she cut in. ‘I speak of Bath as a model for Lymington, but I have no wish to live there. Bath is already taken. Whatever our fortune, we should be nobody in Bath. Whereas here, with our many dear friends …’

‘Our friends here’, he gently suggested, ‘may not be quite as close as you think.’

‘They are as good’, she retorted sharply, with one of those flashes of brutal realism that could be so disconcerting, ‘as any that you and I are likely to get.’

‘Well, my dear,’ he said in a conciliatory tone, ‘there is no need for us to consider the matter now, I dare say, for perhaps my cousin Balthazar will leave me nothing at all.’

But if he thought this would do, he was sorely mistaken, for by now his wife’s hackles were up. ‘I am quite persuaded to stay here, Mr Grockleton,’ she said, with a deliberateness that struck a chill into his heart. ‘Quite.’ She looked at him solemnly. ‘I will not be moved.’

For a fleeting moment Mr Grockleton imagined himself alone with his fortune in London, without Mrs Grockleton, and a wistful look passed across his face. Then he corrected himself. ‘Whatever you wish, my dear,’ he replied, and prepared to leave for the Customs house. ‘Do you really think’, he asked, to change the conversation, ‘that Mr Martell is so taken with Louisa Totton?’

‘I saw them together in the High Street just the day before he left,’ she replied, ‘and I observed his manner towards her. He likes her very much. And she means to marry him, you may depend upon it. She is a clever and determined young woman.’

‘Do determined women always get their way?’ he asked with genuine curiosity.

‘Yes, Mr Grockleton,’ she answered quietly. ‘They do.’

Isaac Seagull was very seldom taken by surprise.

The August sun was shining pleasantly on the High Street. As usual, he was standing by the entrance of the Angel Inn, surveying the scene. There was a particular reason why Mr Seagull liked to be where he was and it had nothing to do with the street scene before him. It pleased him to stand there not because of what was in front of him, but because of what lay under his feet.

A tunnel. It ran from under the Angel, across the street to the smaller inn opposite. Then it proceeded down the hill all the way to the water. There were other tunnels and chambers leading off it. By this means, Seagull knew, he could move goods from his boats to inns and hiding places all over Lymington without anything being seen. When he stood where he did, therefore, and thoughtfully tapped his foot on the ground, he could feel like the master of some ancient labyrinth filled with secret treasure.

There was nothing unusual about the Lymington tunnels. Most of the coastal towns in southern England had them. Christchurch had an elaborate labyrinth centred on the old priory church. Even villages thirty miles from the coast, up on the chalk downs near Sarum, often had tunnels for hiding contraband. Indeed, at a time when the revenue men were having little effect upon the smugglers’ trade, some of these systems may have reflected the human love of underground passages and hiding places as much as any real necessity.

Isaac Seagull was thinking quietly about his plans for the coming months and the use to which his tunnels might be put when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Miss Albion was strolling, under a parasol, in his direction. This was hardly of interest and he paid no attention until she came directly up to him and asked if they might speak. She had, she said, a private question.

As there was nowhere very private inside the inn, he led her through the courtyard into a small garden just behind. No one was there but themselves.

Then she lowered her parasol, looked up at him with a curious smile and a pair of wonderful blue eyes, and asked: ‘Mr Seagull, are you my cousin?’

That surprised him, all right.

 

It had taken her a long time to decide to come to him. Ever since Mr Gilpin had told her about his discovery in the parish register she had thought about the matter. She had asked her father and, after she had returned from tending her sick friend in Winchester, her aunt, if they knew anything about her mother’s family; but it was clear from their lack of interest in the subject that they didn’t. As far as they were concerned she had been a Totton, which was well enough, and she had married an Albion, which was the only thing about her that really mattered; that was the end of it. Fanny had not relished the thought of going to inspect the parish registers herself. At the very least, if she wanted to find out anything more about her mother’s connections, this could be a tedious and unsatisfactory process. The sensible course, undoubtedly, was to follow Mr Gilpin’s advice and forget the whole business.

And that was what she had tried to do. With Aunt Adelaide back, the normal pattern of their life had been peacefully resumed. She had gone visiting with her Totton cousins, shown her sketches to Mr Gilpin for his approval and secretly hoped that, if Mr Martell did return to the area and called upon her at Albion House, her aunt would ensure that this time he was given a better reception.

Yet she couldn’t forget it. Not quite. She herself was not sure why. Perhaps it was just that her curiosity had been aroused, or that she wanted to know more about the mother she had lost. But if she was honest with herself, there was more to it than that and the truth was not very comfortable.

For if I really am connected to such people, she thought, then I am ashamed of it. I am afraid to acknowledge members of my own family. How can I defend such cowardice?

It was in this frame of mind that she realized there was one person who almost certainly knew: Edward’s and Louisa’s father, her mother’s half-brother – Mr Totton. Perhaps she could ask him. Yet here a certain discretion held her back. If he knew and had never spoken of it, he might have his own reasons. Living, as he did, practically in the town, Mr Totton might not thank her for making him talk about even a half-sister’s connection to its less respectable elements. Whatever her curiosity about the matter, she decided not to approach him.

That left only one other source of information, potentially the most dangerous of all: the Seagulls themselves. Even if there was a connection, did the present Seagulls know it? Perhaps not, or maybe they had chosen to keep silent. Or, yet another possibility, possibly they and others in Lymington knew, but it had never come to her ears. What would happen if she approached them? Would they suddenly claim her as one of their own, embarrass her, annoy the Tottons and – it came back to this after all – undermine her own position in society? It would surely be folly to go near the Seagulls.

She had proceeded no further with this delicate matter when news of a different kind drove it, briefly, out of her mind.

‘Fanny, have you heard?’ Her cousin Louisa had taken a chaise by herself and come all the way to Albion House to share the news. ‘My dear, dear Fanny, what do you think? Mr Martell has asked Edward to stay with him in Dorset. And he has particularly asked that I may come too. We are to leave next week. Oh, kiss me, Fanny,’ she cried in delight. ‘I am so excited.’

‘I am sure’ – Fanny managed to smile – ‘that it will be a delightful visit.’

She had wondered, after Louisa had gone, if perhaps she might also be invited, but days passed and no invitation came. She told herself it was natural that Mr Martell should repay the Tottons’ hospitality, yet still continued, despite her better judgement, to hope. Perhaps, she thought, Mr Martell will write or send some message. Although I really don’t know, she scolded herself, why he should. He didn’t, anyway, and ten days after Louisa’s visit, the two young Tottons left for Dorset, after which she felt very much alone.

She had been sitting outside, three mornings after Louisa’s and Edward’s departure, trying to read a book; and, hardly aware that she was doing so, she had started to finger the little wooden cross she wore, when suddenly the thought struck her. The old woman who had given it to her: how lonely she must have been. Did my mother ever go to see her, Fanny wondered? Probably not. I’m quite sure I was only taken to see her once. And why? Almost certainly because my mother was ashamed of her. She didn’t even want me to keep this wooden cross, the only thing the old woman was ever able to give her granddaughter. Here am I, she considered, feeling sorry for myself because I have not been invited to the house of a man I hardly know and who has probably forgotten me; but how many years was my grandmother left to sit in that house in Lymington all alone, denied the love and affection of a granddaughter, all for a worthless vanity. For the first time in her life Fanny realized that nature is as wasteful of the affections as it is of the acorns that fall upon the forest floor.

‘I don’t care what they think,’ she murmured. ‘I shall go into Lymington tomorrow.’

Isaac Seagull gazed at her with interest. He understood exactly the daring of her question, as she calmly set out across the great social chasm that divided them, like an explorer upon a flimsy bridge. This one’s got courage, the master smuggler thought. He answered her carefully, all the same. ‘I’ve never thought of it as such, Miss Albion,’ he said. ‘It would be very distant, you see, and a long time ago.’

‘Did you know my grandmother, old Mrs Totton?’

‘I did.’ He smiled. ‘A fine old lady.’

‘Was she not born a Miss Seagull?’

‘So I believe, Miss Albion. In fact,’ he admitted straightforwardly, ‘she was my father’s cousin. She had no brothers or sisters. That line of the family’s all gone.’

‘Except for me.’

‘If you wish to think of it that way.’

‘You don’t advise it?’

Isaac Seagull looked towards the end of the small garden. His curious, chinless face, in reflective repose, had an unexpected fineness, she thought.

‘I shouldn’t think, Miss Albion, that anyone in the town would remember about old Mrs Totton being a Seagull. I expect I’d be the only one who knows.’ He paused, apparently doing a quick reckoning. ‘You had sixteen great-great-grandparents and one of those was my great-grandfather. Only through your mother’s mother, too. No.’ He shook his head wryly. ‘You’re Miss Albion of Albion House as sure as I’m plain Isaac Seagull of the Angel Inn. If I said I was related to you, Miss Albion, people would just laugh at me and say I was getting above myself.’ And he smiled at her kindly.

‘So if my grandmother was the daughter of a Mr Seagull,’ she persisted quietly, ‘who was her mother?’

‘I can’t say I remember. Don’t think I ever knew.’

‘Liar.’

It was not often that anyone dared to say that to Isaac Seagull. He looked down into the girl’s startling blue eyes. ‘You don’t need to know.’

‘I do.’

‘If my memory serves me,’ he said reluctantly, ‘she might have been a Miss Puckle.’

‘Puckle?’ Fanny felt herself go pale. She couldn’t help it. Puckle, the gnome-like figure with the oaken face she had seen at Buckler’s Hard? Puckle, the family of woodsmen and charcoal burners, the lowliest peasants in the Forest? Why some of them, she had heard, used to live in hovels. ‘One of the Puckles of Burley?’

‘He was very taken with her, Miss Albion. She possessed a rare intelligence. She taught herself to read and write which, forgive me, none of the other Puckles has ever done, I’m sure. My father always told me she was a remarkable woman in every way.’

‘I see.’ She was dazed. Entire landscapes were suddenly opening up before her. In her mind’s eye she saw vistas of underground places, deep burrows, gnarled roots. They were peopled, too, with strange creatures – loathsome, subhuman, hag-like – who turned to look at her or came to her side, claiming her for their own. She felt a cold panic, as though she had been trapped in a cave and heard the flocking sound of bats. She, Fanny Albion, a Puckle. Not a Totton, not even a Seagull, but with the blood of the lowest charcoal burners running in her veins. It was too horrible to contemplate.

‘Miss Albion.’ He was calling her back to daylight. ‘I may be mistaken. These are only things I believe I heard when I was a child.’ He wasn’t quite sure if she had heard. ‘It makes no difference to anything,’ he told her kindly. But all she did was bow her head, and murmur some thanks; and then she departed.

A few minutes later Isaac Seagull was back in his usual place, enjoying the sun. The Albion girl’s secret was safe with him. He’d been keeping secrets all his life. But he contemplated her embarrassment with a philosophical wonder all the same. That, he supposed, was the price you paid for belonging to the gentry, where you had to display your ancestors like plumage and your acres were laid out for all to see. Too high a price, he reckoned; and not for the first time, the clever Free Trader shook his head at the all-embracing vanity of the landed class.

Personally, he was comfortable with all things dark and subterranean. Besides, his fortunes were always riding on the wild and open sea.

Fanny had gone halfway down the High Street when she encountered Mrs Grockleton, who greeted her most warmly. ‘You have not heard from your clever cousin Louisa, yet?’ She was positively beaming.

‘No, Mrs Grockleton. But I don’t think I expected to. Why do you call her clever, by the way?’

‘Oh, come now, my dear.’ Mrs Grockleton wagged her stout finger at her. ‘You and your cousin must not suppose you can hide your secrets from all us old people.’ She gave her a knowing look. ‘Methinks we may expect news from that quarter before long.’

‘I really have no idea what you mean.’

‘My dear child, I caught sight of Mr Martell with Louisa the day before his departure. Do not tell her so, mind. But these eyes can see. And sure enough, he has asked her to Dorset with her brother. Just the two of them. Had he not been serious I should think very likely he’d have asked you as well.’

‘I see no reason why.’

‘Oh, Fanny, you are a good and loyal friend, and I shall ask no more. But my dear child, we both know Louisa means to marry him and I can assure you, knowing the world as I do, that I think she will succeed.’ She patted Fanny’s cheek. ‘What celebrations you and I may enjoy with her then.’

She did not wait for any further comment, but billowed away, under full sail, up the street.

September came: the days were warm, but the oaks’ first golden leaves appeared, hinting at the sharp excitement of the rutting season ahead. At Boldre, Mr Gilpin’s school resumed, and the troop of girls and boys in their green coats were to be seen walking up the hill to Boldre church on its knoll each Sunday morning.

Among them was Nathaniel Furzey. The weeks of summer he had just spent with his own family up at Minstead had certainly done nothing to lessen his appetite for cheerful mischief. In school, he was more or less in order. Mr Gilpin had given him a book of simple algebra and geometry to study, since he had long ago mastered all the sums the other children were doing. Also, somewhat against his judgement, the vicar had agreed that one day a week he might read a history book. But the rest of the time, he was to confine his reading to the Bible. ‘For there is quite enough there, young man,’ the vicar told him sternly, ‘to occupy you for a lifetime.’

Even so, the schoolmaster found him a trial. He would start playing curious games with numbers instead of the problems set; if he was set to learn a text he would do so, but then rearrange the words to make foolish rhymes. More than once it had been necessary to punish him for practical jokes – and this was all since the term began. As for his questions, his infuriating habit of demanding the reasons for things instead of simply learning what he was told, the schoolmaster had to report to the vicar: ‘His mind is too active. It must be curbed.’

The Prides, however, were more indulgent. If Nathaniel tempted young Andrew into mischief there was always a wit to the business, which appealed to Pride the timber merchant. ‘Let them get into trouble,’ he told his wife. ‘I always did. Can’t do any harm.’ And if they got into trouble and were punished, which they were, Andrew and Nathaniel somehow knew, although nothing was ever said, that the grown-ups at home did not entirely disapprove of these activities.

But when, one afternoon after school, Nathaniel told Andrew about his new plan, even young Pride was awestruck. ‘You can’t do that,’ he whispered. ‘Not really.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because … well, it’s too difficult. And anyway, I daren’t.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Nathaniel.

 

September also seemed to have a strange effect upon Aunt Adelaide. It came out unexpectedly one evening when she and Fanny were sitting together in the usual way.

The shadows were falling, but Aunt Adelaide had decided not to light any candles yet and, sitting in her wing chair, was only dimly visible in the penumbra as the orange glow outside the windows slowly ceased. Apart from the soft ticking of the hall clock, the house was silent and it seemed that Adelaide might have fallen asleep when instead she suddenly said: ‘It’s time you married, Fanny.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I shan’t be here for ever. I want to see you settled before I die. Have you ever thought of anyone?’

‘No.’ Fanny paused only for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’ And having no wish to pursue this conversation just now she asked in turn: ‘Did you never think of marrying, Aunt Adelaide?’

‘Perhaps.’ The old lady sighed. ‘It was too difficult. There was my mother: I did not feel I could leave her and she lived such a long time. I was over forty when she died. Then there was this house. I had to look after this, you see. I was doing it for her and for the family.’

‘For old Alice, too?’

‘Of course.’ She nodded and then, with such feeling that Fanny could not fail to be moved, said: ‘How could I not keep Albion House as they would have wished? And whomever you marry, you will do the same, won’t you, Fanny?’

‘Yes.’ How many times had she made that promise? A hundred at least. But she knew she would keep it.

‘You must never dishonour your family, you see. When I think’, she burst out, as she had a thousand times before, ‘of that cursed Penruddock and his filthy troops, and my poor, innocent grandmother, made to ride through the night half naked like that. At her age. Thieves! Villains! And Penruddock calling himself a colonel, the common blackguard.’

Fanny nodded. This was her cue to keep her aunt diverted. ‘Was Penruddock at the trial, Aunt Adelaide?’

‘Of course he was.’ Fanny expected her aunt to plunge straight into a relation of the trial in the usual way, but instead the other fell silent for long moments and Fanny was wondering if she was going to have to listen to the tick of the clock, when Adelaide spoke: ‘My grandmother was wrong. I have always thought so.’

‘Wrong?’

‘At the trial.’ She shook her head. ‘Weak, or too proud. Foolish Alice.’ She suddenly burst out, ‘You must never give up, child. Never! You must fight to the end.’ Fanny hardly knew how to reply to this when her aunt continued: ‘At the trial, you know, she scarcely said a word. She even went to sleep. She let that liar Penruddock and the others take away her name. She let that evil judge bully them all and sentence her …’

‘Perhaps there was nothing she could do.’

‘No!’ her aunt contradicted with surprising vehemence. ‘She should have protested. She should have stood up and told the judge his court was a mockery. She should have shamed them.’

‘They would have carried her from the court, and sentenced her anyway.’

‘Probably. But better to go down fighting. If ever you find yourself accused in court, Fanny, promise me you will fight.’

‘Yes, Aunt Adelaide. I don’t think’, Fanny added, ‘it’s very likely I shall be in court, though.’

But her aunt didn’t seem to be listening to this last remark. Her eyes were gazing thoughtfully at the dimming light of the window. ‘Have you ever heard your father speak of Sir George West, Fanny?’ she now enquired.

‘Once or twice.’ Fanny tried to remember. ‘A friend in London, I think.’

‘A fine old family. His nephew Mr Arthur West has just taken the tenancy of Hale. As I mean to visit my old friend the vicar at Fordingbridge, which lies nearby, I thought to call upon him.’

‘I see.’ Fanny smiled to herself. Evidently her ruse to divert her aunt had not been successful. ‘You think Mr Arthur West is eligible?’

‘He is presumably a gentleman. His uncle is to leave him part of his fortune, which is ample. That is all I know, so far.’

‘You mean to inspect him, then?’

‘We shall, Fanny. You are to accompany me.’

September also brought Mr Martell back to the Forest. He came, this time, to stay with Sir Harry Burrard.

Fanny had heard a good deal about Mr Martell and his big estate in Dorset since Louisa’s return. ‘Oh, Fanny, I do declare I am in love with the house, and so would you be,’ she cried. ‘I was sorry you could not have seen it. The situation is so fine, with the great chalk ridges all around; and he is quite lord of the village, you know.’

‘The house is old?’

‘The part behind is very old, and that I own is dark and solemn. I should pull it down, I dare say. But the new wing has large rooms and is very fine, and has quite a noble prospect over the park.’

‘It sounds delightful.’

‘And the library, Fanny. How you would have loved that if you had been there. It has more books, all finely bound, than you ever saw, and on a table they place all the London journals, which are especially sent down, so that you can follow the world of fashion. I spent quite half an hour up there I swear.’

‘I am glad Mr Martell found you so studious.’

‘Oh, he is very easy at home, Fanny, I do assure you. Not at all the scholar. We amused ourselves in all kinds of ways. He draws – very well, I must say – and he even seemed to take pleasure in my poor efforts. This one in particular he liked.’ She had pulled out a small sketch. ‘Do you remember the day we all went to Buckler’s Hard?’

The sketch, Fanny had to admit it, was good. Very good. It was a caricature, of course, yet it caught the subject, as he seemed to her eyes, quite perfectly. It was Puckle. She had drawn him like a gnome, half tree, half monster. He was grotesque, absurd, rather disgusting.

Fanny shuddered. ‘You do not think it a little cruel?’ she asked.

‘Fanny, you cannot suppose I should let the fellow see it? ’Tis only for ourselves.’

‘I suppose that makes it different.’ But what would you say, she thought to herself, if you had any idea that I, an Albion, might be related to this peasant. And how, then, she wondered, would you draw me?

She also learned from Louisa that Martell had already written to Sir Harry Burrard about the parliamentary seat.

The very day that Mr Martell arrived at the Burrards’, Louisa came to tell Fanny that she and Edward were invited to dine there – ‘Sir Harry being our kinsman, you see.’ This did not seem surprising. And as Mr Martell was reported to be staying a week or more, she supposed that in due course he would call upon her. So it was with some dismay that she heard Aunt Adelaide announce: ‘We go to Fordingbridge on Tuesday, Fanny. My friend the vicar will give us shelter that night. In the evening, we are all invited to dine with Mr Arthur West.’

‘Might we not delay a little?’ Fanny asked. It was Saturday today. What if Mr Martell did not appear until Monday? Or Tuesday, in which case he would miss her entirely?

‘Delay? Why no, Fanny. We are already expected. Besides, I think we should be back by Wednesday afternoon as you have an engagement that evening in Lymington.’

‘Oh?’ Fanny felt her heart leap. ‘With the Burrards?’

‘The Burrards? No. But I have just received this message, a rather tiresome invitation no doubt, but I supposed, as a matter of courtesy, that you would wish to go.’ And she handed Fanny the invitation.

Mrs Grockleton was going to give a ball.

‘It’s perfect, don’t you see, Mr Grockleton.’ His wife was chirping like a bird. ‘Mr Martell is here. Louisa assures me she will bring him. Besides, he knows he promised me himself and he is far too much a gentleman to break his word.’

‘That may be,’ Mr Grockleton said gloomily.

‘Between Louisa and Mr Martell, who is after all their guest, I do not see how they can fail to bring the Burrards. Think of that, Mr Grockleton.’ Mr Grockleton did his best to think about the Burrards. ‘Dear Mr Gilpin will be there, of course,’ she continued. ‘And he is certainly a gentleman.’

‘And Miss Albion?’

‘Yes, yes, she too.’ If Fanny was a less exciting catch, she was, of course, of impeccable family. Indeed, Mrs Grockleton started to think, if she could have an Albion, a Martell and the Burrards, perhaps she might be able to snare yet another member of the local gentry. A Morant, perhaps. ‘We shall have refreshments, dinner, the orchestra from the playhouse – they will be delighted, you may depend upon it – and there must be wine, champagne, brandy. You must see to that, Mr Grockleton.’

‘I shall have to buy it, you know.’

‘To be sure, you will buy it. How else would we come by it?’

‘You forget’, he said drily, ‘that I’m the only man between Southampton and Christchurch who has to pay full price.’ But Mrs Grockleton, if she heard this, ignored it. ‘Apart from the presence, or otherwise, of Mr Martell,’ he enquired irritably, ‘why must everything be done at such short notice? Why Wednesday?’

And now Mrs Grockleton looked at him with genuine astonishment. ‘But Mr Grockleton, of course it must be Wednesday,’ she cried, pausing an instant to give him time to realize for himself. ‘Wednesday is a full moon.’

Tuesday morning was clear and bright, and Aunt Adelaide was in such good humour that you might have thought she was twenty years younger than her age. ‘Francis,’ she told her brother, ‘you shall be quite happy with Mrs Pride.’ As this was virtually an order, Mr Albion did not disagree. Taking just the coachman to drive and one maid to look after them, she and Fanny set off early in the morning on the track across the Forest to Ringwood, from where it was an easy road up to Fordingbridge. ‘We should’, Aunt Adelaide announced brightly, ‘be there by noon.’ And it was with just a trace of reproach that, as they came up towards the wide open space of Wilverley Plain, that she remarked: ‘You don’t seem very happy, Fanny.’

He had not come. He had been, with the Burrards, to dine at the Tottons’ – who might, she thought, have invited her – but he had not come to Albion House. Perhaps, considering his previous reception, that was not surprising; but after what he had said when they parted, she had expected at least a message of some kind. There had been nothing, though: no letter, no word.

‘No, Aunt Adelaide,’ she replied, ‘I am quite happy.’

As they came up on to Wilverley Plain they noticed some small boys in the distance, but thought nothing of it.

The problem was the pig. A full-grown pig is a formidable creature. Not only is it heavy, but it can move with remarkable speed. A harness was needed in order to lead it. Then there was a further difficulty.

‘We’ll have to keep it somewhere for the night,’ Nathaniel had pointed out. That had seemed an almost insuperable obstacle until one of the gang remembered a cousin who had a shed at Burley.

They did not take the main track but kept a few hundred yards to the north of it. At one point the track passed by a lonely, bare old tree.

‘That’s the Naked Man,’ Nathaniel said, and the boys gazed at it solemnly. ‘That’ll be where we do it.’

The vicar was a tall, thin, grey-haired man who welcomed them to his pleasant vicarage very warmly. He appeared delighted at the chance to accompany them to Hale for dinner. The new tenant, he assured Adelaide, seemed in every way a gentleman and had taken the place for five years. ‘Hale has had several owners and tenants in recent decades,’ he explained, ‘and nobody has taken much care of the place. But I understand that Mr West intends to take the house in hand.’

Aunt Adelaide wished to rest after her journey and Fanny was glad to let the vicar conduct her round the small town of Fordingbridge. The five rivers of Sarum, which lay about eight miles to the north, had all joined the Avon’s stream by now and the river, with its long river weeds, made a delightful scene as it passed under the handsome old stone bridge. By the time she returned to prepare for their evening excursion, she was able, at least, to put on a reasonably cheerful face.

Certainly, she thought, as the vicar’s carriage slowly climbed the slope of Godshill that led up to the manor of Hale, the place had the most charming views over the Avon valley. As they came up the long drive to the house, she could see that its handsome Georgian façade showed signs of neglect; but as soon as they reached the entrance it was clear from the two smart footmen who issued from the door that Mr West intended to maintain himself in style. And the appearance of the gentleman himself made everything clearer still.

Mr Arthur West was a fair-haired, rather stocky, thirty-five-year-old gentleman whose brisk, masculine manner told you at once that if anyone had an estate that lacked a master, he was equipped by birth and in every way to satisfy the attendant obligations. His inheritance, if it would not quite allow him to set himself up as a landowner on the scale he desired, was enough for him to look any heiress in the eye. No one would think him an adventurer. He deserved the heiress of a fine estate and he meant to have one; and this very self-assurance made him attractive to many women of that sort. At least, such a woman would know, if Arthur West fixed his blue eyes upon her, he knew what he wanted. And that, as every woman sooner or later discovers, is something to be grateful for.

Towards Aunt Adelaide he was solicitous and gallant, which was very pleasing to her. As for Fanny, he immediately made himself agreeable in a quiet and practised way so that she felt both that they had an understanding and that, if she wished it, he would pursue her. Not having encountered such treatment from men before, she was a little cautious, but as his behaviour was, at the same time, impeccable, she could explore the situation safely and found it not unpleasant.

‘My uncle has told me many tales of your father and his travels, Miss Albion,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘He sounds a most adventurous man.’

‘Not nowadays, I’m afraid, Mr West.’

‘Well.’ He looked at her in a companionable way. ‘Each age has its season. It is probably our turn to be adventurous now.’

‘I’m not very adventurous, perhaps, living down here.’

‘I don’t believe it, Miss Albion.’ He gave her an almost boyish grin. ‘There are always enough adventures in the countryside to satisfy good people like us, don’t you think?’

‘I love the Forest,’ she replied simply.

‘And I quite agree with you,’ he answered.

He entertained them all very pleasantly in the big salon. While he was talking briefly to the vicar, Aunt Adelaide found the occasion to tap Fanny lightly on the arm and whisper audibly that she found their host a very proper man – by which Fanny understood very well that she meant that, having no estate of his own to distract him, Mr West might do very well for Albion House. She was spared the embarrassment of having to reply to this, however, since dinner was then announced and Mr West came to escort the old lady, upon his arm, into the dining room.

The dinner was excellent. Mr West made delightful conversation. He told amusing stories about London, asked, and was kind enough to seem very interested in, the views of both Aunt Adelaide and Fanny upon the great events of the day, was fascinated to learn about the French garrison in Lymington and glad to hear anything they cared to tell him about life in the Forest.

He was also engagingly frank. For when Fanny remarked that their lives were really very quiet, his blue eyes flashed with genial amusement and he replied: ‘Of course they are, Miss Albion. But I assure you I think none the worse of the countryside for that. Our armies fight and our ships patrol the seas precisely to safeguard such quietness.’

It also turned out that Mr West liked to race horses, to hunt and to fish.

When the dessert course had been served, Mr West proposed that instead of the men sitting over port, they should all retire to the library; which clearly suited Aunt Adelaide, who said she hoped he would forgive her if, at her age, she did not linger long.

‘But I should like to see something of the house, Mr West,’ she said, ‘for strangely enough, the place always being empty, or tenanted by people who seldom stayed, I have never been round it before.’

‘Why then,’ their kindly host said, rising, ‘if you will forgive the fact that I have not yet had time to do much to the place, let us explore it together.’ And taking a candlestick in one hand himself, and calling to the footmen to bring more, he led them all out into the hall.

There were two smaller formal rooms besides the library on the ground floor. The decorations were what one would expect in a manor house of the Georgian period, but somewhat faded. The better furniture had been brought by Mr West, but some of the pictures and a few old tapestries had come with the house and evidently dated from the century before; so there was a hint of the Jacobean era in the place, which reminded Fanny of the darker intimacy of Albion House.

When they had done looking at these rooms, it seemed to her that it was time to leave; but her aunt was not quite finished. ‘What lies upstairs?’ she enquired.

‘A landing and small gallery, and a parlour,’ Mr West replied, ‘and the bed chambers, of course. But they are hardly touched as yet, I fear, and are scarcely fit to be seen.’

‘May we not look, Mr West?’ the old lady asked. ‘As I am here, I confess I am most curious.’

‘As you like.’ He smiled. ‘If the stairs …’

‘I go upstairs every day,’ she replied, ‘do I not, Fanny?’ So up they all went, at a slow pace, Adelaide upon Mr West’s arm, two footmen carrying candlesticks, and the vicar discreetly following Adelaide like a shadow, a step below, in case she should fall. Up on the landing they paused for a moment, then Mr West went forward and opened one of the chamber doors, which swung with a soft creak.

It was pitch-dark inside, but as the footmen went in with the candles, faint shapes could be seen: a tall four-poster bed with heavy old curtains in tatters; the faint glow from a polished oak chair, the ghostly flicker of reflected candlelight in a blackened looking-glass.

‘I really think no one has touched these rooms in almost a century,’ Mr West declared. The next bedchamber was the same and, having seen it, Aunt Adelaide signalled that she was ready to descend again.

They were just coming to the head of the stairs when, down a short passage, the old lady caught sight of a large portrait in a heavy gilt frame facing them, but whose lineaments were hidden in the shadows. Seeing her peer towards it, Mr West obligingly bade one of the footmen to hold the candles closer and by their light there now emerged a striking image.

He was a tall, saturnine and darkly handsome man. He had been painted three-quarter length and his clothes suggested that the picture must be about a century old. His long dark hair, falling to below his shoulders, was his own. His hand rested upon the hilt of a heavy sword and he stared out at them with the cold, proud and somewhat tragic air that is often found in those who were friends to the Stuarts.

‘Who is that?’ Adelaide asked.

‘I do not know,’ Mr West admitted. ‘It was here when I came.’ He went over to the picture with a candle and searched the base of the frame. ‘There is a label,’ he said, ‘but it is hard to read.’ He studied it a moment. ‘Ah,’ he called out, ‘I think I have it. This gentleman is …’ He struggled a moment more. ‘Colonel Thomas Penruddock.’

‘Penruddock?’

‘Of Compton … Compton Chamberlayne. Does that mean anything to you?’

Of course. The former Penruddocks of Hale, Fanny realized, must have been responsible. But who could have known that they had a portrait of their kinsman, or that they would have left it behind like this? What ill fate had arranged this ghastly shock for them?

The effect upon Aunt Adelaide was terrible to see. The old lady went white and grasped the oak banister of the staircase as though she might stagger. She let out a tiny moan and seemed to sag as Fanny moved swiftly to her side. But never had Fanny been so moved, or so proud of her aunt as, not wishing to embarrass their host, she righted herself and bravely replied: ‘The name is familiar to me, Mr West. The Penruddocks owned this house a long time ago. And now,’ she continued, taking Fanny’s arm, I should like to go down. I must thank you, Mr West, for a most agreeable evening.’

So Fanny took her safely down into the hall and only she was aware that her aunt was still shaking.

But as the carriage was being brought round, it was the turn of sharp-eyed old Adelaide to look at Fanny and softly enquire: ‘Are you quite well, child? You look pale.’

‘Yes, Aunt Adelaide, I am well,’ she answered with a smile.

Yet in truth she was not, although she had no desire to tell her aunt the reason why. For the picture of Colonel Penruddock had been only too familiar to her: so much so that it had been all she could do not to gasp out loud when it emerged in the candlelight.

The figure and face were those of Mr Martell. To the life.

Caleb Furzey had set out at dawn on Wednesday morning from Oakley. The journey to Ringwood was one that he made every month or so to visit the market there. Sometimes he had piglets to sell, or some illicit venison. He would arrive by mid-morning, take his horse and cart to the inn, wander about in the market and, sooner or later, encounter one of the Ringwood Furzeys. By the end of the afternoon, he would be sitting in the inn, drinking and talking with anyone who cared to do so. Towards sunset, or even after dark, his cousins or the innkeeper would load him on to his cart and, while he slept in the back, the horse, who knew the way quite as well as he did, would walk slowly along the track past Burley and over Wilverley Plain and so take him home.

Given his superstitious nature and the vaguely mysterious reputation that Burley had always possessed, Caleb Furzey might have hesitated to drive past Burley on a night when the moon was full, but today, as he had proudly told his neighbours some time before, was a special occasion. It was the fiftieth birthday of one of his Ringwood cousins. ‘And if I ain’t there,’ he had told a surprised neighbour, ‘they say it won’t be a proper party at all.’

So it was with great expectations of family warmth and cheerful drinking that he was crossing the Forest now. He was up on Wilverley Plain when he saw the Albions’ carriage returning and, as they passed, he saluted the occupants respectfully enough.

The red sun was already sinking over Beaulieu Heath that evening when Wyndham Martell began to ride across it. He had just spent an interesting two hours with Mr Drummond of Cadland, but now it was time to return. Indeed, he was going to be somewhat late for Mrs Grockleton’s ball.

Hardly anyone was going to be there, as far as he could gather. As Martell gazed across the open Forest before him he saw it, very naturally, through the eyes of the gentry. And to the gentry, although the ordinary Forest folk did not realize it, the whole Forest was just a kind of lake. There were the Mill and Drummond families in the east, various others along the coast; in the centre the Morants and the Albions; there were landed families around the north of the Forest and the estates down the Avon valley, like Bisterne, on its eastern border. But as far as their social world was concerned, the forest villages and hamlets, and even the busy town of Lymington, scarcely existed. ‘There’s no one there,’ they would say, without the least sense of incongruity. Thus Mrs Grockleton’s desire to tempt the members of this class into her social orbit was not mere snobbery, but a more primeval instinct: she wanted, quite simply, to exist.

Her hopes that the Burrards would come were going to be disappointed. When she had heard he was calling upon Mr Drummond of Cadland, she had sent an urgent message through Louisa begging him to bring that gentleman and his entire family with him if he could – a suggestion Martell had quietly ignored. But the Tottons were going, and he had promised to accompany them. And besides, Fanny Albion was going to be there.

Why hadn’t Wyndham Martell been to see Fanny?

On the face of it his excuses might be reasonable enough. He had come there to get to know Sir Harry Burrard and he wished to place himself at that gentleman’s disposal. Indeed, Sir Harry had kept him quite busy, both in conversations with himself and in meetings with other people of local importance like Mr Drummond. It was surely right to attend to these matters first and it would certainly have been wrong to raise Fanny’s hopes with the prospect of a meeting that might have to be deferred. There was, besides, another problem. It was by no means clear that he would be welcome if he did call at Albion House and he wasn’t sure he really wanted to be thrown out a second time. Seeing Fanny, therefore, was not without complications.

But couldn’t he at least have sent her a message of some kind during all the days he had been there? He could have and he hadn’t.

The truth was – and he knew it perfectly well – he had deliberately kept her waiting.

He liked her, certainly. No, he conceded, he liked her very much. She was kindly and intelligent. She was wellbred. She came from an ancient family and she was a modest heiress. If he were to marry her, it might not be called a brilliant match, but then, as he had overheard a young blood remark jealously in London a week before: ‘With two fine estates, that damned Martell can marry anyone he pleases and still look a hero.’

If he secured one of the Lymington parliamentary seats and married the heiress of the Albion estate he had no doubt that his father and his friends would say he had done well, and he wouldn’t deny that such things were important to him. And if, perhaps, secretly he yearned for something more than such conventional pleasures, he supposed his own political career might provide it.

There was something else he liked about her too. She was modest and she had not attempted to captivate him. Many women in London had tried to do so; it had been flattering at first but soon became a burden. He didn’t mind when some cheeky girl like Louisa Totton set her cap at him, because, whatever her drawbacks, he didn’t think she was sophisticated enough to deceive him much, and she was amusing. But Fanny was an entirely different case. Fanny had a simpler, purer nature, as well as being more intelligent.

And she was waiting for him. If he chose – and he wasn’t sure he did, yet – she was waiting to be his. He did not fear competition. He liked to play and win. But in the matter of marriage, if there were competitors, there was always the chance that the woman’s heart had been divided. And Mr Wyndham Martell wanted a heart that belonged to him and him alone – first to last.

He did not care for games, therefore, in matters of the heart. Unless, of course, it was he who was playing them. Every man knew that if a woman is waiting for you it is no bad thing to make her wait a little longer.

She would be there tonight at Mrs Grockleton’s ball, waiting.

Some people might have said there were too many plants. But the infallible maxim had been applied: if there is any doubt about the appointments of a room or the quality of the guests, then fill the place with flowers. And, so far as the September season allowed, this was what Mrs Grockleton had done. Every imperfection was masked by a late rose or a shrub. The entrance to the Lymington Assembly Rooms this evening might have been mistaken for a plant house.

‘Mr Grockleton,’ she declared as, accompanied by her husband and her children, she surveyed the verdant scene, ‘I am quite in a flutter.’ And if a stout lady in a ball gown can be said to be fluttering, she was. ‘We have refreshments, dancing, cards. I’m sure I’ve done my best. And the guests are …’ She trailed off.

The guests were what in social terms might be described as mixed. Their core, naturally, was provided by the young ladies of her academy. The dance, officially, was for them. They gave Mrs Grockleton her cover. They, their parents and their brothers were the participants, she the presiding headmistress. Were the Burrards to come and not to care for the company of some of the parents there, it would be churlish of them indeed to be ungracious to the local school’s young ladies or to insult the headmistress. If she could not quite resist trying to make small social sorties beyond this defensible position, she could at least fall back upon it.

A huge asset were the French officers. Glamorous, undeniably aristocratic and God knows – although there was no need to say it – only too glad to go anywhere that offered dancing and free food, the Frenchmen would dance with the tradesmen’s daughters and speak to Mr Martell as equals. She would happily have entertained a hundred regiments upon such terms. ‘It will really seem’, she said to her husband, ‘as if Versailles has come to Lymington tonight.’

But even so, unless a romance should develop between a French aristocrat and one of the girls, the Frenchmen ultimately were pawns in the grand game of connections she meant to play.

Could the town’s fashionable doctor be introduced to Mr Martell? Surely, yes. Some of the other girls’ merchant parents? Probably not. The encounter she dreamed of was that of the blessed discovery. If, say, the Burrards were to come and meet some other major family, and note that she was already their friend – why, then, they would accept her too. Thus, if Mr Martell brought Mr Drummond, Mr Drummond would find that she knew the Albions. And, of course, if she could then have got herself into Cadland and met the Burrards there … ‘These are connections, Mr Grockleton,’ she would explain. ‘It is all a question of making connections.’ Perhaps a quarter of Mrs Grockleton’s huge mental energy was expended in dreaming about discoveries and connections. ‘Whoever comes,’ she said – by which of course she meant only people like the Drummonds or the Burrards – ‘they will find the Tottons and ourselves and the Albions and Mr Martell all friends together. Just so long as it all goes well.’

‘It will, my dear,’ said her husband. The main room really looked very well. The card tables were all set up in a side room. The food, which Mr Seagull of the Angel had provided, the wine and brandy, which Mr Seagull had also sold the Customs officer at full price, without a twitch of his face – all were in place. In half an hour, when the guests began to arrive, he was sure they could not fail to be delighted. ‘And as soon as the music starts,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and the dancing begins …’

Mrs Grockleton nodded. Then Mrs Grockleton stopped. And then Mrs Grockleton let out a cry that was almost a shriek: ‘Oh, Mr Grockleton, Mr Grockleton, whatever shall we do?’

‘What is the matter, my dear?’ he cried in alarm.

‘Everything is the matter. Oh, Mr Grockleton, I have forgot the band!’

‘The band?’

‘The orchestra. The musicians. I forgot to engage them. We have none. Oh, Mr Grockleton, how are we to dance without any music?’

Mr Grockleton had to confess he did not know. His wife stared wildly round at her children, as if she could transform them, like a magician, into so many fiddlers. But as no such miracle occurred, she turned back to her husband. ‘A dance without music! What is to become of us?’ Then a worse thought: ‘What if the Burrards should come? Quick, Mr Grockleton,’ she cried, ‘run to the theatre and see if the musicians are there.’

‘But if there is a play …’

‘A play is only words. They must come here.’

‘There is no play tonight, Mama,’ cried one of the children.

‘Find the musicians, then. Hurry. A piano. Mr Grockleton. Bring me a piano. Mr Gilpin shall play. I know he can.’

‘Mr Gilpin may not wish …’

‘Of course he must play. He must.’ And crying out frantic orders, Mrs Grockleton soon had her husband, children, servants, even Isaac Seagull rushing about in every possible direction. Twenty minutes later there was a piano in the room, albeit somewhat out of tune. Moments after that a fiddler with his violin appeared. He had not shaved that day and he might, perhaps, have had a drop or two to drink, but he said he was ready and gave directions as to where a colleague might be found; and as the first of her pupils appeared with her father the coal merchant, Mrs Grockleton was relieved, if disconcerted, to hear her solitary violinist start to play a hornpipe from behind a potted plant.

The full moon was already rising when the carriage left Albion House.

Mrs Grockleton’s desire to hold her ball on the night of the full moon was entirely natural. In country areas, if people were to return several miles home late at night, they always preferred to do so when the moon was as bright as possible and balls were arranged accordingly, at seasons when there was the best chance of the sky being clear. Although the forest roads had been free of criminals since the Ambrose Hole affair, people still preferred to be able to see their way home.

Tonight, however, Fanny did not expect that they would be returning late. In the first place she had her own reasons for anticipating a less than enjoyable evening. But secondly there had been another development, which had entirely taken them by surprise.

Mr Albion had decided he was coming too.

They had found him already fully dressed when they arrived home that afternoon. He had positively insisted he would go. Whether old Francis had suddenly acquired a new lease of life or whether he was just cross at being left alone for two days it was hard to be sure; but since he refused all attempts to dissuade him and seemed likely to become angry, there was nothing to do but take him. Mrs Pride was accompanying them in case of any difficulty.

Aunt Adelaide was tired, but in a good humour. Although she did not say much to her brother – except to pass on Mr West’s kind remembrances and to state that the new tenant of Hale was entirely a gentleman – the old lady had already made her views clear to Fanny. ‘He is very suitable,’ she had stated. ‘Do you not think so?’ And when Fanny had agreed that he seemed a sensible man: ‘Do you like him, child?’

‘Truly, Aunt, I do not know,’ she had replied. ‘I have only just met him.’ Her aunt was satisfied to leave it at that and question her no further. Fanny could tell by her manner, however, as the old lady sat in the carriage with a shawl wrapped around her, that Aunt Adelaide felt the effort required to go across the Forest had not been wasted and that she had done something important for Fanny’s future.

As for her real feelings, Fanny hardly knew what she felt any more. The silence of Mr Martell, the knowledge – for she had asked Mrs Pride – that even after her departure no word had come from him and the eerie likeness of the picture of Penruddock had been a series of blows. She was not sure she wanted her poor aunt to catch sight of Martell, as Adelaide’s eyes, old although they were, could not fail to notice this awful likeness; and she would prefer to spare her another shock.

She had quite decided that she hoped he would not be there as they clattered up the High Street towards the Assembly Rooms. Minutes later, as they made their way slowly through the plants into the main hall, it seemed to Fanny that she felt nothing at all.

The Burrards had not come. But all the Tottons were there, and the count and his wife, and all the French officers. The bevy of young ladies from Mrs Grockleton’s academy looked very charming; and if, perhaps, one or two of their parents wore coats of a somewhat rustic cut or more powder than was desirable, or laughed a little too loudly, or tittered too bashfully, you would have been a black-hearted villain to take any notice. Mr Gilpin was also there, looking rather cross. Of Mr Martell she saw no sign.

Her father and Aunt Adelaide both desired to sit down, and Fanny had to acknowledge that here Mr Grockleton behaved admirably, putting chairs for them in a corner, bringing suitable people like the doctor and his wife to talk to them and looking after them in every way, so that she was free to go and talk to her friends. Having greeted her cousins, she thought it her duty, given her social position, to make the rounds of the room; so for some time she was too busy making herself pleasant to the various Lymington families and the French contingent to notice anything much, but she did glance round once or twice and see that Mr Martell had not yet arrived. She was rather astonished, however, when Mrs Grockleton had clapped her hands and her husband gravely announced the dancing, to observe Mr Gilpin, looking none too pleased, sit down at the piano and, accompanied by two men with violins, begin to play.

‘A minuet,’ cried Mrs Grockleton. ‘Come, Fanny. Come Edward, lead us in the minuet.’

Fanny and Edward both danced well. The count and his wife fell in behind, the other French officers were not slow to take partners and the business got under way very nicely; although when Edward whispered to her that Mr Gilpin was at the piano because Mrs Grockleton had forgotten the band it was all Fanny could do not to collapse with laughter. The minuet was followed by several more dances. Mr Gilpin then indicated that he felt he should be relieved and rose from the piano. But the two fiddlers, having got quite into their stride, struck up a country dance on their own, and this brought most of the Lymington folk on to the floor; so that it was a very jolly, if not very elegant scene that greeted Mr Martell’s eyes as he quietly entered from the far end of the room just as refreshments were announced.

Fanny did not see him at first. With Edward’s help she had brought her aunt a little fruit pie and a glass of champagne, which was all she wanted; but old Francis Albion, who seemed to be enjoying himself enormously, demanded a plate of ham and some claret. Not only that, he gave his daughter quite a naughty look – which she had never seen before in her life – and suggested that she brought some of the young ladies to talk to him. She was quite astonished at this transformation in the old man and dutifully did as he asked.

A few minutes later, talking to one of the French officers, she suddenly became aware of a presence beside her and knew at once, with a little tremor, who it was.

‘I had been searching for you, Miss Albion,’ said Mr Martell and, almost unwillingly, she looked up at his face.

The tiny gasp she gave was quite involuntary, as was the expression of horror she must have shown, since the sight of it made him frown. Yet she really couldn’t help it. For at her side stood the man whose portrait she had seen the night before.

The thing was uncanny. This was no mere likeness – a similarity of hair, saturnine features or proud, handsome look. This was the man himself. Indeed, it seemed to her, she could only assume that up at Hale House at this moment the frame in the shadowy passage was empty, and that Colonel Penruddock himself had stepped out from it, changed his clothes, and was now standing beside her, tall, dark, very much alive and threatening. She took a step back.

‘Is something wrong?’ No wonder he was puzzled.

‘No, Mr Martell, nothing.’

‘You are not unwell?’ He looked concerned, but she shook her head. ‘I should have called upon you before this but Sir Harry has kept me rather busy.’

‘You would not have found me anyway, Mr Martell, these last two days. I have been away.’

‘Ah.’ He paused a moment.

‘In a house I recently visited, Mr Martell, I saw a picture that bears a striking resemblance to you.’

‘Indeed? Was it such a disagreeable face, Miss Albion?’

If this was intended to draw a smile from her, she remained serious. ‘A Colonel Thomas Penruddock, of Compton Chamberlayne. About the time of Charles II or a little after.’

‘Colonel Thomas?’ His face grew most interested. ‘Pray where did you see this?’

‘At Hale.’

‘I had no idea of its existence. What extraordinary good fortune, Miss Albion, that you should have discovered it. I must go and see it.’ He smiled. ‘Colonel Thomas Penruddock was my mother’s grandfather. My ancestor. We have no picture of him, though.’

‘You are a Penruddock?’

‘Certainly. The Martells and Penruddocks have married each other for centuries. I’m a Penruddock many times over.’ He grinned. ‘If you get one of us, Miss Albion, you get both.’

‘I see.’ She kept very calm. ‘There was some trouble between the Penruddocks and a family called Lisle in the New Forest.’

‘So I have heard. The Lisles of Moyles Court, I believe – although I confess I have never known the details. The other branch of that family were more respectable, weren’t they?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘No. It was a long time ago, of course.’

Fanny glanced across to where her father and Aunt Adelaide were sitting. Mr Albion was chatting happily with two young ladies, but her aunt appeared to be falling asleep. So much the better. There was little point in her being made aware that there was a Penruddock in the company.

‘Perhaps, if your father is in better humour,’ he was saying, ‘I may call upon you …’

‘Better not, I think, Mr Martell.’

‘Well. There is to be a dinner tomorrow at the Burrards. I have a note here from Lady Burrard asking you to come. May I tell her …’

‘I am afraid that I am already promised elsewhere, Mr Martell. Would you please thank her for me. I will send a letter to her tomorrow.’ She suddenly felt very tired. ‘I must look after my father now,’ she said.

‘Of course. When the dancing begins again I shall claim you.’

She smiled politely but non-committally and retired to the far corner, leaving Martell a little puzzled. It was evident that a distance had opened up between them, but he was not certain of the cause. Was it because he had neglected her during his stay? Were there other reasons? No doubt the matter could be put right, but he felt anxious to do so, and had it not been for the dangerous presence of her old father he might have followed her there and then. A moment later, however, Louisa appeared and as she remarked that she was hungry, he could hardly fail to escort her towards the refreshments. Nearly half an hour passed before the sound of the violins signalled the resumption of dancing and even then she did not move.

It was at this point that some of the more discerning guests in the main room began to notice that all was not quite well with Mrs Grockleton’s ball. The two fiddlers were working away hard enough, but one of them was getting rather red and the second, between dances – or even during a dance – was pausing to drink out of a tankard that contained something other than water.

Was their playing a little out of tune? Was a note missing here and there? It would have been inappropriate to ask. Mr Grockleton did murmur to his wife that he might remove the tankard. ‘But if you do that,’ she cautioned, ‘he might stop playing.’ So he left it where it was.

A country dance was in full, if slightly lurching, swing when Mr Martell finally emerged and saw Fanny standing alone. He did not waste any time in moving towards her, but she did not see him approach. Her eyes were upon other things.

Aunt Adelaide was asleep, quite comfortably propped in her chair. But old Francis Albion was in a remarkable state. She had never seen anything like it. He was well into his second glass of claret and looking very cheerful on it. The ladies in general, from her friends at the academy to the count’s wife, had all decided to adopt him. There were at least six of them sitting around him and at his feet, and if his gleaming blue eyes and their peals of laughter were anything to go by, he was entertaining them thoroughly. Fanny could only shake her head in wonderment and suppose that, in the long years of his travels before she was born, her father might have had a more active social life than she had realized.

‘Perhaps you would do me the honour of granting me the next dance.’

She turned. She had already made up her mind what to do if this happened. Now she must see if she could carry it out. ‘Thank you, Mr Martell, but I do not care to dance at present. I am a little tired.’

‘I am sorry. But glad if it means that I have the chance to speak with you. My stay here will shortly end. Then I return to Dorset.’

She inclined her head and smiled politely. At the same time she glanced around the room in the hope that, without being rude to him, she could interrupt his attempt to converse with her. She caught sight of the count and nodded to him; she could see Mr Gilpin, but he was not looking in her direction.

The interruption came blowing in, however, from a different quarter, in the form of Mrs Grockleton.

‘Why Mr Martell, so there you are! But where is dear Louisa?’

‘I believe, Mrs Grockleton, she …’

‘You believe, Sir? Pray do not tell me you have lost her.’ Had Mrs Grockleton, perhaps, had a glass of champagne or two? ‘You must find her, Sir, at once. As for this young lady.’ She turned to Fanny and wagged her finger. ‘Methinks we hear interesting news of a young lady visiting a certain gentleman up at Hale.’ She beamed at Fanny. ‘I have been speaking to your aunt, Miss. She has formed a very good opinion of your Mr West.’

‘I scarcely know Mr West, Mrs Grockleton.’

‘You should have brought him with you,’ cried Mrs Grockleton, oblivious to Fanny’s embarrassment. ‘Methinks you are hiding him.’

How she might have silenced her hostess Fanny did not know, but at this moment the gallant count appeared at her side, asked for the minuet just beginning and, murmuring quite untruthfully to Mr Martell that she had already promised the count this dance, Fanny gratefully took this means of escape.

‘When this dance is over, Miss Albion,’ the Frenchman asked with a twinkle in his eye, ‘shall I return you to Mrs Grockleton?’

‘As far away as possible,’ she begged.

For another quarter of an hour she managed to avoid Mr Martell. She saw him dancing with Louisa, then she sought refuge in the company of Mr Gilpin, with whom, for a little while, she could safely watch the proceedings.

Unfortunately, it could no longer be denied by now that Mrs Grockleton’s ball was not going quite so well. They should have taken the fiddler’s tankard away, since it contained a potent mixture of claret laced with brandy and his fingers were slipping. Strange sounds were beginning to emerge. A few people had started to giggle. Glancing towards the entrance, Fanny noticed Isaac Seagull standing there quietly, looking in with amusement; and wondered what thoughts were passing through his cynical mind. It suddenly occurred to her that his presence, reminding her of the grim secrets of her own ancestry, was not unlike the discordant notes in the music.

‘Something must be done,’ muttered Gilpin. ‘If Grockleton doesn’t act, I shall have to.’ And, as if to prompt him, the violin now made an excruciating screech that stopped the dancers in their tracks.

At that moment the vicar caught Grockleton’s eye. A sign and a brisk nod from Gilpin were enough, and with good grace the Customs officer stepped forward, clapped his hands, raised one of those claw-like appendages and announced: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the evening is growing late, I know, for some. So Mr Gilpin has kindly consented to give us a final – no, you are very generous, Sir – two final minuets.’

The first started off well enough. Fanny partnered one of the French officers. Louisa again danced with Mr Martell, but she tried not to look at them. Mr Gilpin on the piano acquitted himself admirably. Only towards the end did trouble break out.

The two violinists decided they had not done. They were both of them now at that stage of drunkenness where they believed they were enjoying themselves and took quite unkindly to any interference. They felt sure that Mr Gilpin needed accompaniment. Suddenly, therefore, the dancers became aware of the sound of strings. Even this might have passed, since Mr Gilpin was holding his own with firmness, had the other two not come to the conclusion that accompaniment was not enough. The vicar needed leading. And so it was that now the dancers became aware of a more strident sound from the strings, one of greater and greater urgency, but which, most unfortunately, was not the same tune that the vicar of Boldre was playing. In fact, it seemed to be a country dance. The dancers came to a halt. Mr Gilpin stopped and looked furious.

Mr Grockleton stepped forward, tried to speak to the fiddlers, who were still playing, put out his arm to restrain one of them and was promptly tapped on the head with a fiddle. Pale with annoyance, now, he grasped one of the fiddlers and began to drag him away, whereupon the other, who still had his tankard with him, emptied its contents over the Customs officer and started to belabour him with his bow. He might even have hurt him had he not suddenly, with a yelp, felt the finger and thumbnails of Mrs Grockleton close like piercing pincers upon his ear as that lady marched him away, past a grinning Isaac Seagull, past the plants and straight out into the night air.

The good people of Lymington laughed and applauded, and laughed again until they almost cried which, all semblance of dignity having been lost anyway, was probably the sensible thing to do. Mr Gilpin, considerably irritated now, but unwilling to see the evening end in shambles, waited patiently for a moment or two by the piano, then bravely continued the minuet, which the dancers very loyally took up again and brought to a conclusion. But as the Grockletons had now returned and the room was still awash with ripples of laughter, the good vicar had in common charity to do his best to save the day.

He rose to the occasion admirably. ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ He advanced to the centre of the room. ‘In the days of ancient Rome it was the custom to grant victorious generals a triumph upon their return. Such a triumph, I think you will agree, has been earned by our kind host and hostess. For they have expelled the barbarians from our gates.’

There was stamping, ‘hear hears!’ and a round of applause. Fanny, standing to one side, heard a voice she knew to be Martell’s quietly murmur: ‘Well played, Sir.’

‘And now, for a final dance, I am at your service. Mrs Grockleton, what shall it be?’

It would not be true to say that the room fell silent. All around, murmurs arose from behind hands, or other people’s backs, or into handkerchiefs and fans. And Mrs Grockleton heard them. She smiled as gamely as she could. ‘Let it be a country dance,’ she said.

It really seemed they all would dance: the French aristocrats, the local coal merchants, the doctor, the lawyers. Fanny was not at all sure that Mr Isaac Seagull was not dancing as well. Mr Gilpin struck up, with the obvious intention of giving them a good five minutes’ worth.

But Fanny did not dance. She stood at the side, content to watch, unnoticed. She looked for Martell but did not see him. Louisa was dancing with a young Frenchman. Fanny frowned. And then she slowly realized. She had heard his voice just behind her before the dance began. He must, therefore, be standing there now. She dared not look round in case he should ask her to dance. For she had no wish to do so. She was sure she hadn’t. But if he was behind her, what was he doing? Did he mean to speak? How could she speak and what was the point, when he cared so little for her and when, besides, he was a Penruddock? She wished, if he was there, that he would disappear.

Something was happening on the dance floor now. A little gaggle of young ladies had gathered, like an eddy, about Louisa. She was saying something to her partner, who shrugged amiably and smiled. The eddy was moving out towards the edge in the direction of her father. Louisa had detached herself. She was going up to the old man, saying something to him. Mr Albion was looking rather flushed; Aunt Adelaide, awake now, was also speaking but he was evidently ignoring it. Her father was getting up, a girl on each side of him; the others were squealing and starting to applaud. Dear heaven, Louisa Totton was leading the old man out to dance!

And he was dancing: stiffly, of course, with Louisa effectively holding him up. But Francis Albion was dancing a country dance. The other dancers were parting, they were forming a ring, everyone was applauding as a very old man who hadn’t been out in years came dancing through their midst with a pretty young girl and, if she was holding him up, why then so much the more gallant they both appeared. Fanny rose on her toes to see, her heart beating half in fear and half delight. Her father, of almost ninety, was dancing before all the world. Louisa was laughing with pleasure and real admiration. With a gesture that said ‘I’ll show you a thing or two now’ old Francis stepped free, treated them all to a little jig by himself and, as the room erupted into applause, turned back to Louisa, suddenly went deathly pale, choked, felt wildly for his collar and crashed face downwards on the boards, while Mr Gilpin, unaware of what was passing, continued to play for several more bars until the awful silence alerted him to stop.

‘Oh, my dear Miss Albion.’ She heard Martell’s voice behind her, but did not look back as she rushed forward through the dancers to the place where, miraculously, Mrs Pride’s strong arms were already raising the little old gentleman up. Without a word she carried him towards the entrance and the fresh air, where she was quickly joined by Mr Gilpin and the Lymington doctor.

Minutes later, still uncertain of the outcome of this scene, the guests were collecting their cloaks and coats to leave.

And poor Mrs Grockleton, having been through so much that night, could only turn helplessly to her husband and wail: ‘Alack-a-day.’

They had the pig ready and the moon was high as along the track on the gorse-strewn bareness of Wilverley Plain the cart containing Caleb Furzey trundled towards them.

The sky was clear and clustered with stars; the moon shone down with that intimate, frightening urgency it often has when it is full.

The six boys waited by the tree called the Naked Man. The pig was surprisingly quiet, probably because it had been well fed. It grunted a bit, that was all.

The cart was drawing closer. The horse was going at a slow walk. Caleb Furzey’s feet could just be seen resting on the side. From within the empty box of the cart his snores were magnified, as if by some magic of the moon.

Nathaniel and Andrew Pride moved out first. The old horse recognized them, and when Nathaniel took his head, he stopped quite willingly.

Taking him out of the harness was not too difficult. Andrew’s task was to lead him away across the plain and tether him to a stunted tree trunk behind a large gorse brake a few hundred yards off. The next step was to put the pig in the horse’s place.

The makeshift harness they had made worked well enough, but the shafts of the cart were far too high. Two of the boys now tried to pull them down, but couldn’t.

Two more boys added their weight to the shafts. The shafts came down, but not far enough. The pig didn’t like the look of it. Nathaniel was holding firm but the pig was large; if he made a run for it, there would be no stopping him. But now, as he clung on to the pig’s harness, he heard a sound from the cart. Caleb’s feet were moving; the snoring was interrupted.

Suddenly the cart tipped forward. They heard a bump. Caleb had rolled to the front.

‘Quick.’

It was the work of a moment to attach the traces to the harness. Nathaniel was still holding the pig, soothing him as the others stepped back. They all looked apprehensively towards the cart but, miraculously, Furzey was still asleep.

‘Now.’

They fled, but not far. A hundred yards away, behind a gorse brake, Andrew was already waiting.

‘You know what to do,’ said Nathaniel, as he started undressing. So they did as he had told them and went to their stations. It was time for the fun to begin.

The pig, surprisingly, did not react for more than a minute. Then it decided to move.

The pig was much smaller than the horse, but it was heavy and very strong. The cart inched forward, but the sensation of something not only holding but following it was displeasing to the pig. It grunted loudly and tried to make a run. Again, the cart seemed to be holding on, as though it were determined not to let the pig escape its clutches. The pig didn’t like this a bit. It let out a bellow of rage, bumped the shafts from side to side and squealed loudly again.

Behind, Caleb Furzey frowned in his sleep. He opened his eyes, blinked, and awoke.

The full moon was high over Wilverley Plain. All around him, a magical silver light gleamed eerily; close by, the Naked Man stood with its bare arms raised as if it meant to reach down and strike him. He blinked again. What was that strange sound that had awoken him? He got up and started forward. His horse had disappeared. Something else was in the traces. That something made a strange sound which so startled him that he stepped back. The cart tilted.

The pig was lifted off the ground. It squealed, screamed, paddled furiously with its legs. And Caleb Furzey let out a howl of fear.

His horse gone at full moon, a pig in its place. Every rustic knew who did such things – the witches and the fairies. He’d been bewitched! And he was about to clamber out of the cart when he saw another even more terrifying sight. From gorse bush to gorse bush, small, naked figures were flitting, emitting cries. They were all around. They had to be fairies. He must have been mad to come out, past Burley of all places, on the night of a full moon. As the figures flitted about, the squeals of the pig rose to a terrifying pitch. The cart tilted back wildly. For a terrible, mad moment Caleb saw the pig, outlined against the moon. He yelled again with fright, covered his face and threw himself down into the cart, which tilted forward once more.

And there poor Caleb Furzey lay, curled up in a ball, cowering with terror, for upwards of half an hour, until, after there had been silence for some time, he finally peeped out.

The moon was high. The Naked Man was still standing in its threatening attitude; but the pig was gone and the fairies, it seemed, had disappeared into the ground. Out in the silver light of Wilverley Plain, about two hundred yards off, his horse was peaceably grazing.

A mile away, Nathaniel was giving his final instructions. ‘Not a word – not even to your brothers and sisters. Remember, if anybody tells, then we’re all dead.’ He looked at them solemnly. ‘Swear.’ They swore. ‘All right, then,’ he said.

Wyndham Martell couldn’t sleep. The Burrards’ big house was quiet; everyone else had long gone to bed, but he still sat in his room, wide awake.

The moonlight flooded in through the window. He told himself it was the full moon that was keeping him from sleeping. Perhaps. But it was also the girl.

Old Francis Albion had been taken home. At first the doctor had thought he had suffered an apoplexy, but then concluded he hadn’t. They had waited an hour, given him a little brandy to revive him and packed him off home, with the good Mr Gilpin accompanying him.

Although his presence was clearly not desired, Martell had waited about all the same, requesting the landlord of the Angel to give him news, before returning himself. He had caught sight of Fanny as she left, but she had not seen him. She had looked composed, but very pale. He had no doubt she must feel embarrassed by the whole business even though, in his opinion, she had no need.

But that brought him to the other question. Why had Fanny changed so abruptly towards him? Of course, it might be that he had been mistaken all along and that she had never been interested in him in the first place. Perhaps he was guilty of mere vanity in supposing otherwise. But a man has to trust his instincts, and he believed she had liked him. Why the sudden coldness? Had he neglected her? In her eyes, yes. And, he had better confess it, she was right. But he felt there was more. Mrs Grockleton’s word in such matters was probably unreliable, but Mr Arthur West undoubtedly existed, might be considered eligible and was therefore a factor. I should have returned sooner, he thought. I shouldn’t have tarried. But was that enough to explain her coldness? And what should he do?

What, come to that, did he want to do?

It was no good. The moon was making sleep impossible. He seized a pair of boots, went softly down the stairs and outside. The night was really very fine. The stars over the Forest were sharp as crystal. He started to make for Beaulieu Heath, by the moon’s light.

The September night was not cold. He walked very comfortably along the edge of the heath, past Oakley, with the woods on his left. He was not going anywhere in particular. He had continued like this for about a mile when he realized that Boldre church must be not far off and, sure enough, after following a track for a little time he came upon it, standing in a friendly way upon its knoll in the moonlight. He walked round it, then realized that he could not be far from Albion House. So he went down the lane into the valley and took the track that led northwards, under the trees, although it was rather dark, and just as he heard the river splashing over some stones he turned away into the still darker drive until, emerging into the clearing, he saw the ghostly old gables of the house, apparently wide awake in the harsh moonlight. He moved cautiously, now, keeping to the edge of the grounds, not wishing to wake any dogs or alert whatever guardian spirits might be up there, like sentinels upon their watchtowers, in the ancient timbers or the chimneys on the roof.

Which room was hers, he wondered, and where did old Francis Albion sleep? What history and what secrets was the old manor keeping? Could it be that Fanny’s rejection of him was caused by something more than mere indifference or the presence of another lover, some part of her soul, perhaps, secreted in this house?

He supposed he was being fanciful, yet he did not leave. Taking up a station where he had a good view of the most likely windows, he remained there, he really could not say why, for an hour or so.

And some time before dawn, when the moon was still casting long shadows on the bright lawn, he saw a pair of wooden shutters open and a window go up.

Fanny was in a white nightdress. She was staring out at the moonlit scene. Her hair fell loosely upon her shoulders and her face, so beautiful yet so tragic, seemed as pale, as unearthly, as any spirit. She did not see him. After a time, she closed the shutters again.

There was a cold snap in the October evening air as Puckle came to Beaulieu Rails; and out in the misty brown gloaming of the heath beyond, the ancient roar of a red stag announced that the rutting season had at last begun.

Puckle was tired. He had been working down at Buckler’s Hard all day. Then he had stopped briefly to see a friend at the farmhouse which had once been St Leonards Grange. Now, walking along the straggle of cottages by the heath’s edge as dusk was falling, he was ready to go to bed. He had just reached the door of his tiny cottage when a noise made him turn: the sound of a horse walking up the track towards him – a single horse and rider. As he swung round, instinct told him who it would be.

Even in that dim brown light there was no mistaking the chinless face and the faint, cynical smile of Isaac Seagull as he came towards him.

The lander did not speak until he was right beside him. ‘I’ll be needing you soon,’ he said quietly. Puckle took a deep breath.

It was time.

There had been no small amusement in the village of Oakley when Caleb Furzey told them he’d been bewitched.

‘You was drunk at the time, remember,’ they jovially told him. ‘Have another drink,’ they’d cry, ‘and tell us how many fairies you see.’ Or, ‘Careful of that horse, mind. He might turn into a pig!’

But Furzey stuck doggedly to his story, and his description of the pig and the sprites up on Wilverley Plain was so vivid that there were some folk in Oakley who were almost ready to believe him. Only Pride gave young Nathaniel a slow and thoughtful look; but if he had his suspicions he evidently concluded that it was better to say nothing. So the days had passed and then the weeks. And aside from a few titters and jokes about the gullible cottager, nothing of any note occurred in the quiet New Forest hamlet on the edge of Beaulieu Heath.

 

It had not been long before Mr Arthur West had called at Albion House. He had turned up, driving himself in a smart chaise, explaining that he was staying a day or two with the Morants at Brockenhurst. He was dressed in a heavy coachman’s coat and hat, smiling very amiably at the joke, and looked every inch the brisk sporting gentleman that he was.

He was received with enthusiasm by Aunt Adelaide and, since he was the nephew of a friend, even old Francis felt obliged to be polite to him. To Fanny he was friendly, relaxed and cheerful. He did not make the mistake of issuing any invitation that might seem to remove her from her father’s company, but contented himself with remarking that he felt sure they would meet again at one of their neighbours’ soon and that he would greatly look forward to it.

All in all, Fanny thought to herself with a smile, he had played his hand very well. She realized that she was grateful, too. You knew where you were with Mr West. He was there; he was marriageable; he would make himself known to the young ladies of the county and if he received an indication that his attention might be welcome, he would advance, sensibly, one step at a time. They would meet at a dinner here, a dance there; and if something developed, well and good.

Mr West also brought another small piece of news. ‘I received a call recently from a gentleman you know, a friend of the Tottons: Mr Martell.’

To her embarrassment, Fanny felt herself go rather pale and then colour. Seeing Mr West glance at her in surprise she quickly explained: ‘I’m afraid Father and Mr Martell had an altercation when he came here.’

If Francis Albion had given everyone a fright at Mrs Grockleton’s ball, he certainly seemed quite his old self again now – which was to say you could never be sure that he mightn’t have a fit and drop dead on the spot, or, as the doctor confided to Mr Gilpin, ‘He may just as well live to be a hundred.’ One thing was certain at least: as long as he did live he meant to have his way. ‘Martell? A most insolent young man,’ he piped, without a shade of embarrassment.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Mr West, ‘he was most anxious to see one of the pictures in the house: one of his ancestors. And I must say, when we inspected it, the thing was quite extraordinary. It was his double. You saw the picture.’ He turned to Aunt Adelaide. ‘The dark-haired gentleman we looked at upstairs, Colonel Penruddock.’

‘That young puppy was a Penruddock?’ cried Francis, while Aunt Adelaide’s face was like a mask.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mr West said, looking from one to the other, ‘there is evidently some family dispute of which I was not aware.’

‘There is, Mr West,’ Aunt Adelaide replied graciously, ‘but you could not possibly have known of it. However,’ she said with a polite smile, ‘we do not mix with the Penruddocks.’

‘I shall remember in future,’ Mr West promised with a bow.

Certainly this faux pas did not do Mr West any harm in Adelaide’s eyes and she made clear to him when he left that he would be welcome to call again at any time.

‘I think him a very agreeable man,’ Fanny said in answer to her aunt’s questioning glance; and when Francis remarked that he hoped the man wasn’t going to come buzzing around the place like a fly she was able to assure him, with a laugh, that Mr West had a great many other places to go.

Mr West was not the only visitor to Albion House, however. Whether it was by chance, or whether some friend like Mr Gilpin had lent encouragement, a number of people called to see that Fanny was not deprived of company and even Francis Albion could hardly complain if she went out to dine from time to time. One of the most charming of these visitors was the count, who came once with his wife and once without.

Nathaniel had just emerged from Mr Gilpin’s school one afternoon when he was hailed by the fellow trudging down the lane. He didn’t know him, although he reckoned he might be one of the Puckles, judging by the look of him. But when the man asked if he’d like to earn sixpence Nathaniel was all attention.

‘I was up at Albion House and Miss Albion gave me this letter to take into Lymington. Didn’t like to say no to her, but I ain’t going that way. Here’s the sixpence she gave me if you want to take it down there. It’s to a Frenchman, she said.’

‘I can see.’ Nathaniel could read and Fanny’s hand was clear. The letter was addressed to the count. Sixpence was a handsome sum indeed. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said. ‘Straight away.’

A deep November night. Moonless. Better, a thick blanket of cloud had snuffed out even the starlight, so that there was only the pitch-black texture of nothingness over the sea. The faint sound of small waves upon the formless shore gave the sole hint that there was anything yet created in the void beyond. Smugglers’ weather.

Puckle waited. He was standing on a small rise on the coast below Beaulieu Heath. In front of him the mudflats extended hundreds of yards at low tide, cut by long inlets known locally as lakes. To his left, a quarter-mile away, lay the little smugglers’ landing place known as Pitts Deep. The same distance away on his right was Tanners Lane, and past that the park of a handsome coastal estate called Pylewell. The Burrards’ land lay beyond that and then, about two miles away, the town of Lymington.

It was a quiet spot. The farmer at Pylewell’s home farm had long been suspected as a large operator in the Free Trade. It was said that hundreds of casks of brandy were buried at Pitts Deep.

In Puckle’s hand was a lantern. It was a curious object because, instead of a window, it had a long spout. When he pointed the spout out to sea, by covering it with his hand and then moving his hand on and off, Puckle could send pinpoint light flashes out there, which were invisible to all but the smugglers in the vessels on the water. The tide was coming in.

The plan, as Puckle had explained it to Grockleton, was very simple. First, as the tide came in, the luggers would bring the contraband to shore. They would leave it and depart. The main body of Free Traders would then come down Tanners Lane along the beach and remove the contraband. That would be the moment when Grockleton and his troops could pounce. This was a typical procedure, but the cargo on this occasion was particularly valuable: best brandy, a huge quantity of silk, lace – one of the most profitable runs ever made.

‘Another hour,’ he remarked quietly to the tall figure at his side, trying to sound calm. Grockleton nodded, but said nothing.

He had taken enormous trouble. So far everything had gone according to plan. The note from Fanny Albion had been a good idea. Using one she had written to his wife some time ago, it had been an easy matter to forge a short letter. Nor were the contents anything to arouse comment if they had fallen into the wrong hands: thanks for a book he had lent her, good wishes from her father and Adelaide. The note had been left with Puckle. When he gave it to Nathaniel to deliver to the count, who was under instructions to inform Grockleton at once, the smuggler sent a signal that the big shipment was due and that he and Grockleton must meet at the Rufus stone again the next day.

The preparations for the military contingent had been even more careful. In the first place Grockleton had told nobody, neither his wife nor his own riders, that anything was afoot. The colonel had arranged for sixty of his best troops to be transferred up to Buckland. At dusk, he had called a muster and then, taking another twenty mounted men from Buckland, he had slipped out with them, split them into small parties and brought them under cover of darkness to the rendezvous, in a little wood immediately above Pitts Deep. A dozen men were already lying, well concealed, overlooking the beach. Their orders were strict. No one must interfere with the landing of the goods or give any sign.

‘We have to catch the landsmen red-handed,’ Grockleton had impressed upon the count. His own role was to be heroic and quite certainly dangerous. While the twenty horsemen raced out of the woods along the shore to cut off their retreat, and twenty of his men ran with lanterns along the line of the smugglers’ caravan, he intended to call out to offer them terms of instant surrender, or a devastating salvo if they resisted.

There was nothing to do but wait. He intended to remain with Puckle until the luggers came to shore. Just to make certain he didn’t change his mind.

Even Isaac Seagull’s keen eyes could not pierce this darkness. He was supervising personally. This shipment was the big one. Behind him, two hundred men and eighty ponies waited quietly in a long, well-ordered line.

Each pony could carry a pair of barrels with flattened sides, roped together over its back. These barrels were called ankers and each held eight and a third imperial gallons. The men would mostly carry a pair of half-ankers, one on their chest, the other on their back, each weighing about forty-five pounds – a heavy load when they had a tenor fifteen-mile march ahead of them.

The tea was packed in waterproof oilskins, known as dollops. A pony could carry several of these. The bales of silk were also in oilskin packages, but for these Seagull had devised a special form of transport. Half a dozen tall, strong women were standing just behind him. They wore long dresses that hung very loose on them. As soon as the silks were brought to shore, however, their dresses would come off. The silks would be wound round them, yard after yard, as though they were being embalmed, and at last, when they had all they could carry and were twice the girth they had been before, they would put their dresses back on, and ride and walk their way to their various markets. Within a couple of days, two of these women would be up at Sarum and another over at Winchester.

As he waited in the dark, Isaac Seagull smiled to himself.

There were so many routes you could choose when you were landing goods on the shores of the Forest. For the smaller drops Luttrell’s Tower in the east was useful. So was the Beaulieu River. It amused him, on occasion, to use the old fortress of Hurst Castle: the Customs had actually put an agent there a few years back, so Isaac Seagull, in his genial way, had gone to see him and asked: ‘Would you like me to break your head or pay you?’

‘Pay,’ the fellow had said promptly and, although he reported to Grockleton, he had followed Seagull’s orders ever since.

On the west side of the Forest, along the coast between the spit of Hurst Castle and Christchurch, there were two wonderful landings. These were the narrow gullies coming down to the shore where a string of packhorses could wait unseen. Bunnies, these little defiles were called: Becton Bunny lay just below Hordle; Chewton Bunny a mile or so further west. Chewton was good because the beach on each side contained treacherous quicksands, to impede the Customs men. From Chewton you went up a mile or so to the Cat and Fiddle Inn, then across the Forest, up the track called the Smugglers’ Road between Burley and Ringwood. There was the first of several Free Traders’ markets held quite regularly up that way. And from the Smugglers’ Road you passed up into the northern forest and far beyond.

But back in the eastern forest there was also Pitts Deep. There were advantages to that, too. You could go eastwards, skirting Southampton; or you could go by Boldre church and across into the western forest by the ford above Albion House, picking up the Smugglers’ Road a few miles further on. Pitts Deep was good, and less obvious. That was why a shipment was coming in there now.

Grockleton tensed. Without his realizing it his claw-like hands gripped Puckle’s arm, causing Puckle to curse quietly as the lantern shook.

For a moment more the Customs officer failed to see anything, but then he did: a faint blue light, winking out at sea. Puckle flashed the lantern again. Two more blue winks. Two from Puckle. Then a long blue flash.

‘They’re coming in,’ the smuggler said quietly. A partial break in the cloud gave them a little starlight now. Just enough to make out the water’s edge and the white lines of the lapping waves. Grockleton felt his pulse racing. The moment of triumph. Soon it would be his.

Beside him Puckle did not feel any excitement at all. For him, he knew, this was the final action that must seal his fate. ‘Don’t worry,’ Grockleton, meaning to be kind, murmured beside him, ‘there’ll be plenty in this for you.’ But it wasn’t true. None of it was true.

Long moments passed. Then the sound of oars and, two hundred yards out, the vague shapes of three large luggers rowing towards Pitts Deep.

Grockleton was gone. Running, stooped over, below the line of the little cliff, now that he was satisfied that the goods really were coming in, he was anxious to ensure that the French troops didn’t move too soon. It was all going exactly to plan. The three luggers were beaching; men were leaping into the water. A moment later they were starting to unload.

Even from where he stood, Puckle could see that they were unloading a prodigious amount. Casks, boxes, oilskins – one could not see exactly, but there appeared to be a long dark line of goods stretching for about fifty yards along the shoreline. Pitts Deep had never received such a cargo. The luggers were finishing their work. The speed of these mariners was remarkable. In the faint starlight, he could see one of the luggers pulling away. A few yards out it started coming towards him. The second lugger was beginning to move out.

Puckle sighed. It was time for him, too, to move.

Grockleton waited patiently. An hour passed. Puckle had told him that the Free Traders often waited a good while before coming down, to make sure the coast was clear. The goods on the shoreline looked so tempting that he longed to go down and inspect them; but he knew he must not. There must be no risk of giving away the ambush.

His eyes scanned the shoreline. Puckle had been ordered to stay at his post because this was what he would normally have done. There was a risk here. He might signal the smugglers to warn them not to approach. But if he did, Grockleton would have him arrested and bring the entire weight of the law down upon him. He smiled to himself grimly: even this would not be the worst outcome. He’d be able to appropriate the entire cargo without the risks of a fight.

Another hour passed. He strained, listening for some sound. At last he could bear it no longer. Moving carefully, bent low, almost holding his breath in case that sound should alert anyone, he crept back to Puckle’s station. It took him ten minutes. He worked his way up on to the tiny knoll.

It was vacant. He peered around. Perhaps the fellow had left his post to attend to a call of nature. Or possibly the Free Traders were close by and they had called him down. He peered around into the gloom. No sound. No movement. He waited five minutes. Surely if the smugglers were here they would have come by now.

Grockleton was a patient man. He waited another half-hour. The silence was complete. Puckle must have warned them. He got up and started to move stiffly. As he did so, his foot struck something, making a sharp tinny crash which, it seemed to him, would have awoken the dead. It was the spout lantern. He looked around, then shrugged. There was nobody to hear.

He walked back to where the troops were waiting and called for a lantern. Holding it aloft, he went down towards the contraband. There was a huge quantity: a fortune at his feet.

Curiously, he reached down to one of the ankers of brandy to see how heavy it was. He tried to tilt it. The anker fell over. He frowned, took hold of the one next to it. The barrel rose easily when he tugged. It was empty. He kicked the one next to that. Empty too. He ran to one of the oilskin dollops of tea, started to unwrap it. Loose straw. He started to lope about. Kicking ankers, dollops, boxes. Empty, all empty.

Then, in the middle of the night upon the Forest shore, Grockleton turned to where the darkness covered the deep and let out a great howl.

Isaac Seagull watched the long cavalcade make its way up the Smugglers’ Road. There was a profusion of tracks, defiles and gullies to mystify any Customs riders or dragoons trying to find the Free Traders caravans as they wound their way northwards; but there were no riders out looking for smugglers tonight. The Customs contingent was safely away in the eastern forest where he had so skilfully diverted them.

The run into Chewton Bunny that night had been the finest moment of his long career: a prodigious cargo. He was sorry about having to force Puckle to act as decoy. The poor fellow’s agony had been pitiable.

‘You mean I have to leave the Forest?’

‘Yes.’

‘When can I come back?’

‘When I tell you.’

The tale they made up about their quarrel and a little play-acting in the street had taken in the Customs officer completely. Puckle was already safely at sea by now. He’d gone out in one of the luggers. He’d be well paid. Handsomely. Not that the money meant much to him when he was being exiled like this. But once Seagull had known that Grockleton meant to use the French garrison, he’d needed to do something drastic.

When Mr Samuel Grockleton walked down Lymington High Street that afternoon everyone greeted him very politely. They were all there in their usual places, except Isaac Seagull who seemed to be away.

In a strange way the people of Lymington were getting to like Mr Grockleton. He took his humiliations like a man. As he walked down the street towards the Customs house by the quay, he acknowledged each greeting and, if he didn’t exactly smile, you could hardly blame him for that.

Near the bottom of the street he saw the count, who came up and, giving him a melancholy smile, touched his arm with an affection that was real. ‘Next time, mon ami, perhaps we shall have better luck.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I’m always at your service.’

Grockleton nodded and passed on. He had already requested a warrant to be made out for Puckle’s arrest. That, together with a full description, would be sent to every magistrate in the country. It might take time, but sooner or later Puckle was going to pay for this. Meanwhile, if he ever got the chance, he’d use those French troops to shoot every damned smuggler in the Forest.

Only one aspect of the business had not occurred to him: that as long as he proposed to use French troops, the lander’s information would always be better than his.

For the companion the count had brought to his rendezvous at the crinkle-crankle wall that night in spring was Mr Isaac Seagull.

The count felt a genuine affection for Mr Grockleton and his preposterous wife. But he wasn’t stupid.

Francis Albion knew, sometimes, that he was behaving badly and he also, occasionally, felt a twinge of guilt. But when a person comes close to the end of his life it is not unusual for him to feel it only fair that his selfishness should be indulged a little longer. So, if he felt any guilt, he was able to suppress it.

By mid-December, although she did not go out much, Fanny had met the ubiquitous Mr West upon three more occasions. She also seemed distracted and sad. Francis wondered if she were in love with him. If Fanny must marry, he supposed the West fellow was not a bad choice. He could give up the lease of Hale and come to live at Albion House. After all, that way he could learn to run the estate and Fanny would not be taken away. So he brought up the subject with her one winter morning when she had come to sit with him as he rested in his room. ‘Do you have feelings for Mr West, Fanny?’ he mildly enquired.

‘I like him, Father.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘No.’ She shook her head and Francis could see that she meant it. ‘Why, Father – did you wish me to marry him?’

‘Oh, no. There is no need.’

‘I know Aunt Adelaide does. And if I were forced to do so, I have no doubt he would be an agreeable husband. But …’ She spread her hands.

‘No, no, my child,’ he said tenderly. ‘You should consult your heart.’ He paused. ‘There is no one else? You seem a little sad.’

‘There is no one. It is only the weather.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’ He gazed at her watchfully. ‘You have your whole life ahead of you, my child, an inheritance. Looks that are very pleasing. I have not the least fear of you remaining unmarried. But’ – he smiled with satisfaction – ‘there is not the least hurry.’

‘You do not wish to see me married, Father?’

Old Francis paused a moment before answering carefully. ‘I do not fear for you, Fanny. I trust your judgement. And I should not like you to marry with the thought only of pleasing me. As for the rest.’ He gave her such a sweet little smile, ‘I like to have you here with me for what, you know, cannot be much longer. I dare say your aunt will outlive me, but if anything should happen to her, you see, I should be quite alone.’ He made a sad face now.

‘You shall never be alone, Father.’

‘You promise me, Fanny, that you won’t go away and leave me all alone?’

‘Never, Father,’ she promised, suddenly moved. ‘I will never leave you.’

Fanny had not been in love before and so she did not know about the pain. There was, besides, this further problem: she had no idea she was in love at all.

If Mr Martell came into her mind, as he often did, it was only as a figure of fear and repulsion. If she suddenly fancied she saw his dark image through a window or, hearing a horse’s hoofs, turned, half expecting it would be him, or listened carefully whenever her cousin Louisa spoke of her visits to the Burrards’, in case she spoke of him, these were only examples, she told herself, of a sort of morbid interest, just as one might think of some threatening, ghostly figure from a Gothic novel. To think that she could have been on terms of near intimacy not merely with a Penruddock, but with the very image of her great-grandmother’s murderer – for that was effectively what he was. What could she make of her own feelings, of his smile, of his hints, even of tenderness? She did not know; she told herself she did not care. It was all useless and meaningless anyway. But with these reflections came one other new and insidious thought.

Could it be that her judgement was at fault? Bad blood. She had bad blood, low connections: she was tainted. Her gentility, her claims to consideration were, in a sense, a fraud. At least the peasants like Puckle are honestly what they are, whereas I lack even that excuse for my existence, she thought. Even if Mr Martell were not an impossible Penruddock, he could scarcely wish to touch me if he knew the truth.

Although hardly aware of the process, she found that by Christmas she had less and less energy. Sometimes she would sit all morning in the parlour, apparently reading a book yet in reality not even doing that. If a visitor like Mr Gilpin called, she could rouse herself into a liveliness, so that she seemed her normal self. But the instant he was gone she would relapse into lethargy, staring out of the window. If Gilpin invited her to tea she would agree to go; she would mean to go; but for some reason she did not understand herself she would sit, hardly able to move until Mrs Pride, standing there with her coat, would induce one of those little bursts of energy that would carry her through the visit.

She got through her days. She did all that was required. One might have accepted, if one did not know her, that the weather was making her listless. No one could know, since she could not tell them, that, hour after hour, she felt not sadness as much as a great, grey sense that everything was pointless.

By mid-January Mrs Pride and Mr Gilpin were seriously worried about her.

Fanny Albion was not the only worry upon the vicar’s mind that month. Of no less concern was the fate of another even younger life.

Nathaniel Furzey had been found out.

It was inevitable that sooner or later someone was going to talk. Over the Christmas season one of the boys told his sister; she told her mother. Within a week it was all over the Forest. Some people laughed, others were scandalized. With the exception of the Prides, who were embarrassed, the parents of the other boys involved were up in arms. To induce the boys to slip out of their cottages at night; to run around naked; to play at witchcraft. They came to see the vicar.

So did the master of the school. ‘This cannot go on,’ he told Gilpin frankly. ‘The boy is a bad influence. I do not think I can continue if he is there. Perhaps’, he added with a viciousness he had been storing for months, ‘you have been teaching him too much.’

It was useless to argue with so much opposition and Gilpin was far too wise to do so. Nathaniel was sent home to his parents in Minstead. His career at Gilpin’s school was over.

But what to do next? It was normal enough for the boys at the school, by the time they were eleven or twelve, either to return home to work for their parents or to be apprenticed to some shopkeeper or craftsman. Yet as Gilpin reflected about the boy, he found it hard to see him settling down into a humdrum life with any craftsman. He could foresee some unfortunate shopkeeper being plagued with practical jokes and, no doubt, throwing Nathaniel out long before his apprenticeship was completed. He could imagine the boy wandering about Southampton looking for work, getting picked up by some Navy press gang and thrown on board a ship. The press gangs were out in force these days. And then? The Navy was England’s greatest glory, her oak-walled defence. But what was life like for the press-ganged men who worked the noble ships? ‘Rum, sodomy and the lash,’ an old mariner had once told him. He hoped it wasn’t quite as bad as that. But whatever the truth, it wasn’t what he wanted for Nathaniel Furzey.

Given the boy’s lively intellect and enterprise, Gilpin found he could see two possible destinies. One, that he receive a proper education, perhaps go as a poor scholar to Oxford and, quite possibly, end up in the Church. The other that he would remain in the Forest, Gilpin thought, and develop into a first-rate smuggler, in which case he might as well go and apprentice to Isaac Seagull right away. After all, since somebody was going to run the smuggling it might as well be someone intelligent. The irony of these two choices was not lost upon the vicar; when he discussed the case with Mr Drummond and Sir Harry Burrard, each of those worthy gentlemen seemed to consider both alternatives with interest.

The solution finally came, however, from a slightly unexpected quarter: Mr Totton the merchant. He had been at dinner with the Burrards and heard about the case. ‘With no more children to educate,’ he told Gilpin in his easy way, ‘I’d be glad to help this boy if you recommend it. He sounds a little wild, though.’

‘He’s bored, I think. But you’ll be taking a chance.’

‘That’, said Totton cheerfully, ‘is what merchants do. So tell me, where shall we send him to school?’

‘There’s a first-rate school in Winchester,’ said Gilpin.

And since one good deed almost always begets another, it was only days after young Nathaniel was packed off to Winchester that Mr Gilpin set about doing something definite for Fanny Albion.

‘Bath!’ cried Mrs Grockleton. ‘Bath! And with Fanny Albion as our charge. We should be as good as her parents, Mr Grockleton – in loco parentis.’ She pronounced the Latin phrase as though it were a state secret. ‘Think of that. It’s not as if’, she added with a certain want of tact, ‘you had anything to do here.’

‘And are the Albions in agreement with this?’

‘Well, old Mr Albion, you may be sure, is against it as he is against most things. And Fanny is reluctant to leave him. But Mr Gilpin has persuaded her to consider it and Mrs Pride, the housekeeper, who’s really like an old nanny to her, you know, has been helpful too, I understand. And then Mr Gilpin has quite persuaded old Miss Adelaide. So I think the matter is decided.’

‘Although Mr Albion is against it?’

‘Well, my dear, it’s the women who take the decisions in that house, you know.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Grockleton. ‘Then I suppose’, he continued after a pause while he reflected that this was the best chance he was likely to get of quitting Lymington for a while, ‘that we had better go to Bath.’

‘Thank you, Mr Grockleton.’ His wife beamed. ‘I told them you always see things my way.’

They left two weeks later.

‘Oh, Fanny, we are well up the hill,’ cried Mrs Grockleton as they arrived, ‘which is quite the fashionable place to be,’ she added, in case Fanny had not understood. They were to stay six weeks. After such a period it was fashionable to be bored of Bath although there were those who, for reasons of health or inclination, lived there all year round.

The house Mr Grockleton had found was certainly a fine one. Like most of Bath’s houses, it formed part of a handsome Georgian terrace and was built of a creamy stone.

The houses rose up the steep hills in rows and tiers, in elegant terraces and crescents, staring out at the sky and down into the city’s valleys through which the local river snaked between cliffs of stone. If God had asked Mrs Grockleton how she thought He should create heaven, she would probably have told Him: ‘Make it like Bath.’ She might, however, have added, considering her own plans: ‘You can put it by the sea.’

Fanny, although she did not say so, liked the look of it less. The house, while certainly well-proportioned and elegant, had no garden. Few houses in Bath did. Nor, except in one or two parks, which were anyway given over mainly to lawns and flower beds, did there seem to be any trees. But when she gently remarked upon this to Mrs Grockleton, that lady was able to put her right at once. ‘Trees, Fanny? But have you not considered, in a place like Bath, all those leaves would make such a mess. And besides,’ she added with perfect truth, ‘there are woods in profusion on the hills all around where, I dare say, they look very elegant.’

The house was quite big. The Grockletons had brought their children, but there was a nursery for them on the upper floor. The main reception rooms were on the level above the street and had splendid views down over the city. Fanny quite enjoyed sitting and looking over this prospect. She even tried to sketch it. But there was seldom time for sitting long when Mrs Grockleton was in charge.

She certainly gave Fanny a change of air. They went down to the Pump Room where, by the old Roman baths, one took the medicinal waters. In the big yard, with an old Gothic abbey church making a charming contrast, men in blue coats and gold buttons waited to convey people in sedan chairs. Mrs Grockleton insisted that she and Fanny use these upon the first occasion.

The next day they attended a concert at the Assembly Rooms. These were large and very handsome. They learned that there was to be a subscription ball two evenings later, which Mrs Grockleton insisted they must attend.

The next day was taken up chiefly with shopping – which was not to say that they bought anything, but they inspected the fashionable shops and observed all the people in them.

‘For Bath sets the tone, Fanny,’ Mrs Grockleton obligingly explained. ‘Bath is where polite society is born. Bath is’ – she was delighted by the sudden thought – ‘like our academy. Even the most charming young ladies, those of the highest birth who have lived all their lives in the country, can benefit from being exposed in Bath.’

The ball turned out to be a slight disappointment. If the fashionable world was at Bath, it had not descended on the Assembly Rooms that night. Instead, a large collection of the spa’s widows, invalids, half-pay officers and eager tradesmen danced the night away very cheerfully and with a certain decorous noise. They encountered the family of a Bristol merchant whose two sons asked Fanny to dance. So did a very pleasant army major, whose coat collar had taken on that slightly greasy look, which cloth has just before it starts to fray. ‘You need have no fear of me,’ he genially remarked to her. ‘I’m here to find a rich widow.’

The major, in fact, turned out to be an amusing man, who told her much that was useful about the town. ‘For people like yourself in the higher part, there are the upper rooms to go to in the evening. Better company up there. But the best sort, the gentry, don’t come to the Assembly Rooms often. Not unless there’s something worth seeing. They have private parties. That’s where you belong.’

In her different way, Mrs Grockleton had come to a similar conclusion. ‘I’m afraid’, she remarked to her husband when they were alone that night, ‘the Rooms were full of people like us.’

‘You don’t care to meet people like ourselves?’ her husband mildly enquired.

‘If we wanted to meet people like us,’ Mrs Grockleton very reasonably pointed out, ‘we could save our money and stay at home.’

The succeeding days went off well enough, though. When it was sufficiently warm, in the mornings, they took the children to see the sights, or to walk round by the river to view the splendid wooded slopes of Beechen Cliff. Another day they went out of the city to wonder the splendour of Prior Park, past which much of the stone for the building of the city had been brought on a specially constructed railway track which, being on a long incline, operated by the force of gravity. Mr Grockleton was much taken with this.

Mrs Grockleton was thorough. Soon Fanny felt she knew the city as well as most visitors: handsome Queen Square, the Circus, the elegant Pulteney Bridge designed by Adams, the Assembly Rooms, upper and lower, and the Royal Crescent, where one walked on a Sunday, to be seen. There was no defined social season at Bath, for with people going there all year round it was always a season of a kind. The place was very agreeable, on the whole, even if they didn’t know many people. At the end of the first week it rained, almost continually, for three days and Fanny might have felt a little depressed if she had not received a most loving letter from Louisa saying that she and her brother were planning to make a short visit to Bath themselves, to enjoy her company.

It was halfway through the second week when the strange little incident occurred. Having spent an hour or two playing rather listlessly with the Grockleton children in the house, Fanny had gone down to the centre of the town alone. There were shops in the arcaded streets selling every kind of luxury, but her attention had been especially taken by one window in which there was a fine display of Worcester china. The set, which was decorated with depictions of English landscapes in the classical style, had seemed so appropriate in this English Roman spa that she had decided to come back and peruse it at her leisure. And, for quite half an hour, the listlessness she had felt almost disappeared as she inspected one charming scene after another. At last, however, she emerged and started to walk up the hill.

She had only gone a little way and come to an intersection, when, a couple of hundred yards away down the street on her right, she saw Mr Martell. He was stepping out of a carriage. He turned, with his back to her, and handed down a very handsomely dressed young lady. A moment later they entered a large house together.

Mr Martell. Her heart missed a beat. With a lady. Why not with a lady? Was it Mr Martell, though? She hadn’t actually seen his face. A tallish, saturnine man, dark-haired. The carriage, drawn by four beautifully turned-out horses, certainly belonged to someone rich and aristocratic. The way he moved, the general look of him were so exceedingly like Mr Martell that she had assumed it must be he. But then, she reflected, Mr Martell had a double in an old picture; there could be other visitors to Bath who resembled him.

Was it Mr Martell? She felt her pulse quicken sharply. She wanted so much to know. She hesitated. What would she do if she encountered him? Would they speak? Would she speak? What could she say to Mr Martell and a handsome young lady? If he was staying in Bath, would they meet, or would he move across the upper horizon of the city, from one private house to another, hidden from her view?

Since he is living in a world quite beyond mine, where he has certainly no further desire for my company; since his heart is probably engaged by now; and since, besides, he is a Penruddock, with whom I cannot and do not wish to have anything to do, she thought, these speculations are quite useless. The only thing is to move on.

She didn’t. Looking around for an excuse, she found a view to admire and lingered there several minutes, in case he came out. After all, he might have been returning the lady to her house. But no one emerged. The carriage remained where it was. After a further pause she began to walk along the pavement towards it. She was only curious, she told herself, that was all.

Her heart was beating faster, though. What if he appeared now and bumped into her? She would be polite but cool to him. She would certainly rebuff him. If there were any lingering doubts in his mind about her attitude towards him she would be able to settle them. Fortified with this intention, she walked casually in the direction of the big wheels of the carriage.

The door of the house was closed. The coachman was sitting calmly but very smartly in position. He was wearing an elegant chocolate-brown coat and cape. She looked up at him and smiled. ‘You have a very handsome carriage,’ she said pleasantly. He touched his hat and thanked her kindly. ‘And who does it belong to?’

‘To Mr Markham, My Lady,’ he replied politely.

‘Markham, did you say, or Martell?’

‘Markham, My Lady. I don’t know any Mr Martell. Mr Markham just stepped into the house.’

‘Oh. I see.’ She forced another smile, then walked on. Had she made herself look foolish? She didn’t think so. Was she relieved? She thought she must be. So why was it, then, as she turned the next corner, that the energy she had experienced in the last few minutes seemed to drain from her? Her feet suddenly felt heavy. Scarcely knowing it was doing so, her head hung forward and her shoulders seemed to wilt. Ahead of her, up the steep stone hill, the sky inadvertently grew a duller grey.

When she got back she went up to sit with a book by the window of the drawing room and when Mrs Grockleton suggested a drive she excused herself, saying she had a headache. And there she sat for some hours, doing nothing, wishing for nothing. That night she slept badly.

Fanny’s curiosity as to the whereabouts of Mr Martell was to be satisfied early the following week by a letter from Louisa.

It informed her that as Mr Martell was expected at the Burrards’ in a few days, she and Edward had decided not to come to see her in Bath.

Indeed, Fanny, I’m sure you will be glad to hear that Mr Martell is to go to London afterwards and has proposed that Edward and I should travel with him. Great as the delights of Bath must be, I’m sure they cannot compare with London, so I fear we shall not be seeing you and Mrs Grockleton there.

That was it. Louisa had forgotten to enquire after her health or even to seem sorry at their not meeting. There was something else, too, about the letter. At first Fanny could not quite put her finger on what it was, but gradually, as she pondered it, she saw the intention clearly enough. A note of triumph: her cousin was telling her plainly that she had done better. A coldness: behind the brief, throwaway regret at not seeing her, Louisa was really saying that she had more exciting things to do and she didn’t care if Fanny knew it.

So, Fanny thought grimly, my cousin and close friend doesn’t love me. Apart from her father and Aunt Adelaide, did anyone? Mr Gilpin, perhaps, but it was his duty to love. Maybe there was little to love about her anyway. And the sense of her worthlessness and the pointlessness of all things overwhelmed her, so that life itself seemed like a great, grey winter wave breaking and then receding upon an empty shore.

The incident that took place at the end of February in the fashionable spa city of Bath was, you might think, an almost trivial event. Yet it was not seen in that way at the time. Within days there was hardly a person in the whole of Bath, despite the fact that practically no one knew the unfortunate young lady in question, who had not taken sides. The matter was of such curiosity because it was so hard to explain. Theories abounded. It cannot be said that all this talk, none of it even known to the unfortunate young lady, did anyone much harm or good. Except, that is, for the impoverished major who had danced and talked with her at the Assembly Rooms. For on the strength of this intimate knowledge of the subject, he was soon much in demand, invited to dine in houses where he’d never been asked before, with his chances of finding a rich widow enhanced considerably.

Fanny Albion, meanwhile, was in gaol.

‘Mrs Pride must come with me.’ Aunt Adelaide was firm and, in such circumstances, even old Francis could hardly argue; but he did somewhat plaintively enquire who was going to look after him. ‘You are going to stay with the Gilpins,’ his sister told him.

Mr Gilpin had wanted to go to Fanny himself but Adelaide had persuaded him that he could be more help in looking after her brother. ‘I could have no peace of mind leaving him without Mrs Pride,’ she told him and so the old man was conveyed down to the vicarage, with which he pronounced himself well enough pleased. Mr Gilpin, meanwhile, contented himself with a letter.

My dear child,

How or why this strange business has arisen I can scarcely guess. Nor can I imagine that you could ever perform any act of malice or dishonesty. I am praying for you and ask you to remember – more than that, to know that you are in God’s hands. Trust Him, and know that the Truth shall make you free.

To Adelaide he said only: ‘Get a good lawyer.’

So the intrepid old lady and Mrs Pride set off together to make the seventy-mile journey to Bath. On the turnpike roads, with changes of horses, they could arrive there upon the second day.

It was a source of fury to Mrs Grockleton that Fanny should be held in prison at all, but all that good lady’s efforts had been in vain. For some reason – perhaps it was something he had eaten, or merely the fact that the trial judge was to arrive shortly – the magistrate had ordered that Fanny was to be held in the city gaol. Not even Mrs Grockleton’s threat to have the Customs men inspect his house had moved him.

Insofar as was possible, the small prison where she was held had been made comfortable for her. She had her own cell, food, everything she could need. She was treated with politeness as those set to guard her had no wish to displease the generous and slightly frightening Mrs Grockleton, who was constantly visiting. Mr Grockleton, meanwhile, had already secured the services of Bath’s leading law firm to defend her and the head of the firm himself had been to see Fanny three times.

Surely, therefore, it should not be long before this regrettable matter was cleared up and Fanny set at liberty. It should be so. Yet, on each of the three occasions, the distinguished legal gentleman had come away shaking his head. ‘I cannot obtain a statement from her,’ he confessed.

So that finally Mr Grockleton was moved to suggest to his wife what had been in his mind for some time. ‘Supposing she did it,’ he said.

The outrage with which this was received did that stout lady credit. ‘If you ever say such a thing again, Mr Grockleton, I shall box your ears.’

So Mr Grockleton said no more. But he wondered, all the same.

The shop was not a large emporium, but a busy one: buttons and bows, ribbons, every kind of fine lace. You might find ladies, dressmakers, all sorts of people in there, buying the small oddments without which, in Bath, life would be almost meaningless.

It had been a slow, dull day and the afternoon was already losing light, as though someone were drawing down the blinds, when Fanny Albion had started to move towards the door. She had been in the shop for some time, drifting listlessly round the tables, inspecting pieces of silk and other fashionable fripperies. She had no real desire to buy anything and had only come in there because she lacked the energy, or the will, to walk up the hill towards her lodgings. Her mind had been full of melancholy reflections. During her wanderings the bag on her arm had come open. After spending about twenty minutes in this way, she had lingered, in an abstracted way, for several minutes by a round table on which were displayed a large number of pieces of fine lace, some of which she had picked up. Then, calmly closing her handbag, she had moved towards the door.

The shop assistant who had been watching her had run out to apprehend her the moment she was through the door. This girl had been joined by the manager of the shop only seconds later. They had made her open the bag, in which – this was not in doubt – lay a neatly folded piece of lace, value ten shillings. Passers-by were called to witness. Fanny was taken back inside the shop. The beadle was summoned.

In all this it was noticed that Fanny seemed dazed and said nothing.

‘But my dear child, what can you possibly mean?’

Despite her long journey, Aunt Adelaide had insisted upon being taken to see Fanny as soon as they came to the Grockletons’ house. Now, looking very frail in these strange surroundings, but with a steely determination, the gallant old lady gazed at her niece with a piercing look.

But even that did no good as Fanny sat there and slowly shook her head, while her aunt and Mrs Pride looked on.

‘What can you possibly mean, child?’ Adelaide’s long, arduous effort at self-control had stretched her nerves, now, almost to breaking point, so that her question rose in exasperation until it was almost a scream. ‘What can you mean, you don’t know whether you did it or not?’

 

The dinner at the Burrards’ was a fine affair. The Tottons were all there and Mr Martell, who had just arrived that afternoon; also Mr Arthur West, who by now was known to the Burrards and always a useful addition at any dinner.

The first remove had just been served and the company was investigating the venison, duck, rabbit stew, fish pie and other dishes supplied when Mr Martell, having taken his first taste of the first-rate claret, politely enquired of Louisa: ‘What news of your cousin Miss Albion?’

As the table fell silent and Louisa blushed red, it was Sir Harry himself at the end of the table who very sensibly interposed: ‘If you wish to help yourself and Fanny Albion, you must be prepared with a better answer than a blush, Louisa. For I must tell you plainly, the whole Forest is talking about her and the news is already in London.’ He turned to Martell. ‘That poor young lady, Sir, has been accused of stealing a piece of lace from a shop in Bath. It’s the most absurd and unconscionable thing imaginable. She is being held in the common gaol and will be tried, I believe, very soon. As the business cannot be anything but a misunderstanding she will, of course, be acquitted. Her aunt, despite her age, has gone to her. She is a most courageous old lady. Her father is with Mr Gilpin.’ He fixed his eyes upon Louisa. ‘Everyone at this table, Louisa, and all our acquaintance unite in defending Fanny Albion and we shall welcome her back soon.’ He said it sternly.

‘Hear, hear,’ said Mr Totton firmly.

‘I wish’, remarked Mr Martell, with a deep frown, ‘that I could offer my services in some way. I know an excellent lawyer in Bath.’ He paused. ‘Unfortunately I fear I may have offended her in some way.’

The Tottons and the Burrards glanced at each other questioningly and Mr Totton remarked that he had never heard this was so. Mr Arthur West leaned forward helpfully. ‘I believe, if you will permit me, Sir, that I can tell you why that is. You will recall the picture of your great-grandfather you came to see at Hale?’

‘Indeed.’

‘To whom, Sir, you bear so striking a resemblance. Perhaps you were not aware that old Mr Albion and his sister Adelaide are the grandchildren of Alice Lisle and, in their eyes, you are a Penruddock.’

The effect of this information upon the table was dramatic. Burrard and the Tottons stared at him in amazement.

‘You are a Penruddock?’ There were so many other significant items of information about Martell – his two estates, his education, his good looks, his interest in the Church and in politics – that the question of his late mother’s family had somehow never come up.

‘The Martells and Penruddocks have married each other for centuries. My mother was a Penruddock,’ he said with pride. ‘I had not realized the connection of the Albions with Alice Lisle, but surely Colonel Penruddock was only arresting a known troublemaker, and the business is long forgotten now.’

‘Not in the Forest.’ Sir Harry shook his head. ‘The Albions, at least, would regard you with horror.’

‘I see.’ Martell fell silent. He remembered, now, Fanny’s questioning him at Mrs Grockleton’s ball and her sudden coldness.

‘Old Miss Albion, in particular,’ Mr Totton explained, ‘feels passionately about the subject. Her mother brought her up, so to speak, in Alice Lisle’s shadow. Alice was born Alice Albion, you see, and Albion House was her true home.’

Martell nodded slowly. The vision he had had of Fanny the first time he had come to that dark old house came back to him with vividness. His impression had not been wrong, then. She was, indeed, a tragic figure, trapped with those two old people in a house full of memories and ghostly shadows. But this information also meant something else: he had been correct, almost certainly, in thinking she cared for him. It was the discovery that he was a Penruddock that had caused her to avoid him and push him away.

It is the shadow of Alice Lisle that stands between us, he thought. Curse her. The thing was ungodly. And now, thinking of her terrible situation, a wave of pity swept over him. How must she feel, facing such an ordeal, almost alone? ‘I am deeply sorry to hear of her predicament,’ he said quietly and the dinner continued with no further mention of such a painful subject.

When the ladies retired, leaving the men to their port, he did venture to bring up the subject with Burrard and Totton.

‘It’s a strange business,’ Burrard informed him. ‘Gilpin and I, without interfering, have tried to get information. The shop in question, having accused her, is unwilling to back down. The magistrate insisted she be held. But worst of all is the state of mind of Fanny herself.’ And he explained, briefly, how Gilpin had persuaded the Grockletons to take Fanny to Bath. ‘She had fallen, during the winter, into a very melancholic state. Alas, it seems the visit to Bath, as yet, has effected no cure. She is utterly lethargic and says nothing to help her cause. And, even for people of our sort, Martell, theft is theft. I will not conceal from you that, privately, I fear for her. The case is grave.’

Theft: the penalties for theft in eighteenth-century England were harsh indeed. Sentences of death or transportation were frequent. The value of the goods stolen seldom interested the courts much: it was the moral character of the criminal and the attack upon property that concerned them. Theft, of the kind of which Fanny was accused, was theft pure and simple, and even gentlefolk could be severely punished for such an offence. After all, it provided an example to society at large that the law was absolute.

‘Do we know why she should have fallen into melancholy when she did?’ Martell ventured to ask.

‘No.’ It was Edward Totton who answered now. ‘I think it was after Mrs Grockleton’s ball that she seemed to become withdrawn. I suppose her father’s making a spectacle of himself may have caused her, however unjustifiably, embarrassment. Louisa and I are at fault, I believe. We didn’t realize; we should have done much more for her at that time. But we didn’t and I feel rather ashamed.’

Just after the ball. Her melancholy, thought Martell, might also have another cause. Yet what the devil, he wondered, as they went to join the ladies, could he do about it? It was hardly to be imagined that the family would have failed to obtain good legal counsel. His involvement could not possibly be welcome.

Only one phrase from all this conversation kept recurring, nagging at his mind: ‘She is utterly lethargic and says nothing to help her cause.’ She must be persuaded to help her cause. The case was far too serious to be left to chance. She must help herself in every way she could.

The gentlemen and ladies were making up two tables of cards, but Martell was not in the mood for play just then and nor, it seemed, was Louisa; so they moved away to a sofa and began to talk.

There was no doubt, Martell considered, that Louisa was a very pretty and amusing young woman. He liked her; enjoyed her company. He had even, once or twice, thought of more. A Totton might not have been quite his style, but within a broad range he could marry whom he pleased. Perhaps the shock of the news about Fanny had added a tenderness to his mood, but he looked at Louisa now with affection. ‘I must confess’, he told her, ‘that I am very distressed about Miss Albion.’

‘We all are,’ she said quietly.

‘I only wonder if there is not something I can do. Perhaps,’ he continued, thinking aloud, ‘if Edward were to go to see her, I could accompany him.’

A little cloud crossed Louisa’s face. ‘I had not known you wished to involve yourself with Fanny,’ she remarked softly. ‘I am not sure she wants even Edward’s company at present.’

‘Perhaps. And yet’ – he shook his head – ‘I suspect it is precisely company – I truly mean affection – that she needs.’

‘I see.’ It scarcely required the female instinct, with which Louisa was well endowed, to see in which direction Martell’s feelings might be tending. ‘It is not easy to be sure’, Louisa said carefully, ‘exactly how matters lie. For that reason, perhaps, we are cautious.’

‘Your meaning? It cannot surely be that Miss Albion is guilty of this crime.’

‘No, Mr Martell.’ She paused. ‘Yet even so, we cannot at this distance know anything for certain. There may be something …’

He gazed at her, half astonished, half curious. Louisa was no fool. She was trying to hint something. But what?

‘I will tell you something, Mr Martell, if you will promise never to repeat it.’

‘Very well.’ He considered. ‘I will not.’

‘There is a circumstance of which my cousin may not herself be aware. You know, I think, that my father and her mother were brother and sister.’

‘I do.’

‘But they were not. She was his half-sister. And her mother … well, my grandfather’s second wife came from a different station of society. She was a Miss Seagull. The family are of the lowest kind: sailors, innkeepers, smugglers. And further back …’ She made a little grimace. ‘It’s better not to ask.’

‘I see.’

‘So that is why, perhaps, we wonder … we cannot be sure …’ She gave him a sad little smile and he stared at her.

For he saw – he saw it quite clearly – that she was not herself even aware of the incalculable malice behind what she had just told him. ‘It is good of you to confide in me, Miss Totton,’ he said quietly and made up his mind, that very instant, that he would go straight to Bath, at dawn the very next morning.

Adelaide shook her head. She had been in Bath for over a week, without success. At moments she had been so near the end of her tether that she had almost decided she could bear it no more and that she would return home. But she had been guarding the temple of her family for so long now, tenaciously holding on for her mother, her brother and her niece, that she could scarcely have let go had she wanted to. She was so locked, clamped, riveted to the house of Albion that she couldn’t have given up on Fanny if she’d tried.

This did not mean, however, that she was hopeful of success. ‘You’ll be like Alice,’ she cried bitterly. ‘She wouldn’t defend herself: falling asleep in front of that judge; never protesting. Are you going to let them murder you too? Are there to be no more Albions?’

But Fanny said nothing.

‘Can you’ – the old lady turned wearily to Mrs Pride – ‘say anything to persuade her?’

For a week, now, Mrs Pride had conveyed Aunt Adelaide to and fro, had listened quietly to all that passed in the Grockleton household and brought, as far as possible, a sense of comfort by her presence. She had also observed Fanny and drawn her own conclusions. So now, although she spoke gently, the Forest woman was firm.

‘I’ve known you all your life, Miss Fanny,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched over you. You were always bold and sensible. But they’re hunting you now.’ She looked straight into Fanny’s eyes. ‘You’ve got to save yourself. That’s all there is to it, really. Just save yourself or there won’t be anything left.’

‘I’m not sure I can,’ said Fanny.

‘You just have to. That’s all,’ Mrs Pride repeated.

‘You must fight, Fanny,’ cried her aunt. ‘Can’t you see? You must fight. You must never give up.’ She stared at Fanny, then turned to Mrs Pride. ‘I think we should go now.’ She rose stiffly to her feet.

As they left, Mrs Pride glanced back at Fanny and their eyes met. There was no mistaking the older woman’s message: ‘Save yourself.’

After they had gone, Fanny took out Mr Gilpin’s letter and read it again in the hope it would give her strength, but it didn’t really help and she put it away again. Then she closed her eyes, though she did not sleep.

Save herself. If only she could. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she would curl up into a ball, like an unborn child and lie like that for an hour. At other times, she would sit staring vacantly ahead of her, unable to do anything at all. It seemed to Fanny that there was no way out of her predicament. Her life was enclosed by walls as blank, as unyielding and as close as those of her prison. There was no way out, no alternative, no end.

Yet how she yearned for an escape, for someone to come and save her. Aunt Adelaide could not do it. Even Mrs Pride could not. They told her to save herself when all she needed now was to be saved and comforted by another. But who? Mr Gilpin, had he been there, might have helped. Yet in the end she knew he could not.

She longed to be forgiven. For what she scarcely knew. For her very existence, perhaps. She longed for the one she loved to come and comfort her and tell her he forgave her. She could face anything, then. But it was, from first to last, impossible. So she stayed, in utter misery, where she was and kept her eyes closed to shut out the pain of the light of the world.

She did not, therefore, see him as he came to her door.

 

How long does it take for a man to know, absolutely, that he loves a woman?

Wyndham Martell looked down upon the pale figure sitting in silence in her cell, as a pale ray of sunlight through the small window caught her face, making it look ethereal. He thought of her vulnerability and all he now understood about her, and he knew in that moment that this was the woman whom destiny had given him to love. After which, as all who have loved have known, there is nothing further to say. His life was decided. It took, approximately, one second.

Then he stepped through the door and she looked up in the most entire astonishment. He did not pause but moved straight to her and, as she started to rise, he took her in his arms and with a tender smile said: ‘I have come, Fanny, and I shall never leave you.’

‘But …’ She frowned, then looked desperate, ‘you do not know …’

‘I know everything.’

‘You cannot …’

‘I even know the dark secret of your Seagull grandmother and her forebears, my dearest.’ He shook his head affectionately. ‘Nothing matters, so long as I am with you and you are with me.’ And, before she could speak further, he kissed her and held her in his arms.

Fanny began to shake, then she broke down and, clinging to him, she wept and wept, hot tears that came in a shaking flood that would not stop. He did not try to soothe them but let them come and held her tightly, murmuring only words of love. And there they remained, they did not know how long.

Neither saw Aunt Adelaide return.

For a moment or two the old lady could not understand what was happening. Fanny was in the arms of a strange man, whose face was turned away. Who he was or why Fanny was clinging to him she had no idea. She put out her hand to steady herself on the arm of Mrs Pride, who was standing just behind her. Several seconds passed before she spoke.

‘Fanny?’

The two young people sprang apart. The man turned and looked towards her. Aunt Adelaide stared and then went very pale.

Whether she realized that this must be Mr Martell or whether, for a moment, she supposed that the figure in the picture she had seen at Hale had miraculously come to life and she was looking at Colonel Penruddock himself it was hard to guess; but whichever it was, as she gazed at him in horror, she hissed only a single word. ‘You!’

He collected himself quickly. ‘Miss Albion, I am Wyndham Martell.’

If Aunt Adelaide heard him, she chose to ignore it. Her face was white and wore a look of anger and hatred unlike any that Fanny had ever seen before. When she spoke, it was in a tone of contempt that she might have used to a thief. ‘How dare you come here, you villain! Get out.’

‘I am aware, Madam, that in the past there has been bad feeling between your family and that of my mother.’

‘Get out, Sir.’

‘I think it is unnecessary …’

‘Get out.’ She turned to Fanny now, as if Martell no longer existed. ‘What is the meaning of this? What are you doing with this Penruddock?’

It was not only the cold, angry question; it was the look of hurt, of shattered disappointment, of betrayal in the poor old woman’s eyes that was so terrible to Fanny.

She has looked after me all my life, Fanny thought, trusted me, and now I have done this to her: the most terrible thing that I could do – the worst, betrayal. ‘Oh, Aunt Adelaide,’ she cried.

‘Perhaps’, her aunt said, with a quietness that went like an arrow through her heart, ‘you have no need of your family any more.’

‘I do, Aunt Adelaide.’ She turned to Martell. ‘Please go.’

He looked from one to the other. ‘I shall come again,’ he said.

There was silence as he left.

‘Do you wish’, her aunt asked, still coldly, ‘to give me any explanation?’

Fanny did her best. She confessed that she had developed feelings for Martell without knowing about his ancestry. ‘I do not suppose’, she added, ‘that he knew of my ancestry either.’ She explained how she had discovered and, effectively, sent him away; and how she had not seen him since, until he had so unexpectedly walked into her cell.

‘You kissed him.’

‘I know. He was tender. I was overcome.’

‘Overcome’, her aunt said with bitterness, ‘by a Penruddock.’

‘It shall never happen again.’

‘He may return.’

‘I will not see him.’

Her aunt looked at her with suspicion, but Fanny shook her head.

‘Fanny.’ Aunt Adelaide did not speak with anger now; her voice was very quiet. ‘I am afraid that if you see that man again I can no longer see you myself. We shall have to part.’

‘No, Aunt Adelaide, please do not leave me. I promise that I shall not see him.’

Adelaide sighed. She turned towards Mrs Pride. ‘I am tired. I think we should go back after all. My child.’ She embraced Fanny gently. ‘We shall meet again tomorrow.’ Having, thus, done all she could to preserve the family, the old lady retired.

Fanny did receive one unexpected visitor that night, however. It was Mrs Pride. That worthy lady stayed with her nearly an hour, during which time she learned exactly what had passed between Mr Martell and Fanny, and saw only too well what the true state of Fanny’s affection was.

‘He came to save me,’ the girl wailed, ‘but it is impossible. I know it to be impossible. Everything is impossible.’ And though she held her, and let her cry, and comforted her as best she could, even Mrs Pride could not deny that what Fanny said was true. As long, she thought grimly, as the memory of Alice Lisle dwelt at Albion House, no Penruddock could ever come there. It could not be otherwise. Memories were long in the Forest.

The next morning Mr Martell came to call, but on Fanny’s instructions he was turned away. The same thing happened that afternoon. The day after, he tried to leave a letter, but it was refused.

There had been so many false alarms in the past that only when the doctor was absolutely certain that Francis Albion was dying and could not last more than a day or two did Mr Gilpin finally send a message to Adelaide.

The arrival of the letter placed the old lady in a quandary. She felt she must return to her brother yet did not wish to leave Fanny, the more especially since she dreaded the thought of her receiving another visit from Mr Martell. But when Fanny pointed out that there had been no sign of Martell for three days and once again renewed her promise not to have any contact with him, she felt somewhat reassured.

‘Besides, how could I bear to think that I had kept you, his only comfort, from him at such a time?’ Fanny cried. ‘Go, I beg you, and take my love to him so that he may know I am there in spirit if not in body.’

There was much truth in this and Adelaide agreed to go. There remained, however, the paramount question of the coming trial. It was only ten days away now. The best available lawyer was ready and waiting to defend her in court. But Fanny’s own state of mind remained unclear. One day she would seem to have the energy to defend herself, another she would sink into a lethargy so that, as the lawyer very fairly pointed out: ‘I cannot be sure what impression she will make in court, nor even how she will answer any questions put to her.’

‘No matter what my brother’s state of health,’ Adelaide assured him, ‘I shall return well before the trial. We shall have to do the best we can then. Perhaps,’ she added, ‘I shall bring Mr Gilpin with me.’

Upon these terms, therefore, Aunt Adelaide departed on the arm of Mrs Pride, leaving Fanny, for the time being, alone.

As the carriage rolled along the swift turnpike between Bath and Sarum, Mrs Pride had time to reflect carefully on all that had passed in the last few days. She only wished that she could see a solution to the terrible dilemma ahead.

About Fanny she had no confidence at all. The trial, it seemed to her, could very well go against her even if she made a strong defence. As to her state of mind and the presence of Mr Martell, both raised large questions to which she could see no solution.

As far as Aunt Adelaide was concerned, Mrs Pride didn’t blame the old lady for her view of Mr Martell. If the Prides still remembered the treachery of the Furzeys, how could old Adelaide forgive a Penruddock? In her place, thought Mrs Pride, she would have felt the same. As for finding him with Fanny like that … It must have nearly killed her.

Again and again, though, her mind returned to that tearful interview with Fanny. She had no doubt about the state of Fanny’s heart. She wished it were otherwise. But it was surely this impossible love that lay, at least partly, behind Fanny’s helpless condition. They reached Sarum in the evening without Mrs Pride seeing any way out of the dilemma.

They took the Southampton road out of Salisbury, over the high chalk ridge with its view over the Forest, and picked up the Lymington turnpike later in the day. By late afternoon, as the day was closing, they came along the lane to Mr Gilpin’s vicarage.

The vicar himself came to the door to greet them, which he did gravely, leading Adelaide straight to the drawing room, where he asked her to sit down. To her enquiry after her brother’s health, he paused a moment and then quietly told her: ‘Your brother died, just before dawn, this morning. It was entirely peaceful. I had been praying with him, then he slept a little, and then he slipped away. I could wish for such an end myself.’

Adelaide nodded slowly. ‘The funeral?’

‘With your permission, tomorrow. We can wait if you wish.’

‘No.’ Adelaide sighed. ‘It is better that way. I must return to Bath as soon as possible.’

‘You wish to see him? He is in the dining room, all ready.’

‘Yes.’ She got up. ‘I will see him now.’

Mr Gilpin had made all the arrangements and done so thoughtfully. When Adelaide had spent a little time alone with her brother he explained briefly the form of service he proposed at Boldre church, where the Albion family vault had been made ready. The Tottons, Burrards and other local families had all been informed and would be coming unless she wished otherwise. She herself was most welcome to stay at the vicarage, he added, but this, with many thanks, she declined as she preferred to stay in Albion House. Though some of the servants had been allowed to return to their homes in her absence, enough were still there to take care of her.

‘Promise me to rest at least a day or two before your return to Bath,’ he begged her. ‘You have time to do so.’

‘Yes. A day. But after that I think I must go. I cannot leave Fanny alone.’

‘Quite so. Perhaps, then, the day after the funeral, I may call upon you; for there are certain matters in that connection I wish to discuss.’

‘Of course.’ Indeed, she let him know, she was most anxious for his advice.

He saw her safely off, watching her carriage from his door until it was out of sight. Only then did he come back, cross the hall and enter his library, the door of which had been kept closed during Adelaide’s visit. He turned to the figure with whom he had been closeted for most of the afternoon. ‘The day after tomorrow, then. I shall talk to her. But I want you to come with me. You may have to speak to her too.’

‘You think it wise?’

‘Wise or not, it may be necessary.’

‘I shall be guided by you, then,’ said Mr Martell.

The funeral at the old church on its little knoll had been an intimate occasion. The Tottons, the various Forest neighbours, the tenants and servants of Albion House had all been there. Mr Gilpin had kept the service short but very dignified. He had alluded to Fanny in his brief address and in the prayers and, as they parted from Aunt Adelaide, the congregation did not fail to send her kindly messages.

Adelaide had wished to return quietly to the house alone when the service was over and this was respected, so that it was only she and Mrs Pride who were conveyed up the drive to the old gabled house. When she was installed in the oak-panelled parlour, Mrs Pride brought her some herbal tea and left her, so that the old lady could doze a while before eating a small dinner of ham and retiring early.

Mr Gilpin appeared at eleven o’clock the next morning and Adelaide was ready to receive him.

You had to admire her, Mrs Pride thought. As she sat, very erect, propped up with cushions in a big wing chair in the parlour, she might be frail but, despite all she had been through, she was sharply alert.

When Mr Gilpin entered, Mrs Pride started to withdraw, but Adelaide summoned her back. ‘I should like Mrs Pride to remain,’ she said to Gilpin. ‘We could not manage without her.’

‘I quite agree.’ The clergyman smiled at the housekeeper warmly.

‘Let me tell you first’, the old lady began, ‘how the case rests with Fanny.’

She described exactly the state in which Fanny remained, her inability to come up with any defence, the lawyer’s concern, the whole dismal business. She spoke briefly of the Grockletons’ kindness, but she did not mention Mr Martell. When she had finished Mr Gilpin turned to Mrs Pride and asked her if she had anything to add.

Mrs Pride hesitated. What should she say? ‘Miss Albion’s recollection is very precise,’ she said carefully. ‘Miss Fanny’s case seems grave. I fear for her.’

‘Her lack of defence is strange,’ Gilpin remarked. ‘I wonder, is it possible, do you suppose, that the lawyers have any thought that she might have – for whatever reason – actually taken this piece of lace?’

‘The idea is absurd,’ replied her aunt.

Gilpin looked at Mrs Pride. ‘I cannot say, Sir, what they may think. I do not believe, even now, that she has ever addressed the question.’

‘She is in a strange state of mind, most evidently. Almost, forgive me, a derangement. She is clearly, my dear Miss Albion, not herself.’

‘Quite.’

‘Yet why’ – he looked at her searchingly – ‘could this be? Is anything disturbing her mind, or her affections?’

‘Nothing of consequence,’ snapped Adelaide.

‘I believe, Sir,’ said Mrs Pride quietly, ‘that her emotions are greatly disturbed.’ She got a sharp look from Adelaide, but she had to say it.

And now started the most difficult part of Mr Gilpin’s mission. He began by making very clear to Adelaide the extreme danger he believed Fanny was in. ‘She is accused. There are respectable witnesses. Her position in society will not, in these circumstances, protect her. Indeed, as a point of honour, the judges might even sentence her to transportation, to show they make no distinctions. Such things have happened.’ He paused to allow this awful consequence to sink in.

But even he had not fully reckoned with the fixed nature of Adelaide’s mind. ‘Justice,’ she replied scornfully. ‘Do not speak of justice when I remember what the courts did to Alice Lisle.’

‘Justice or not,’ the vicar pursued, ‘that is the risk. You will surely agree that we must take every possible step to save her.’ This received a curt nod. ‘I believe I should accompany you to Bath. Would that be agreeable to you?’ Again a nod. ‘I must, however, caution you’, he went on, ‘that I do not believe my presence will necessarily induce Fanny to save herself – and save herself she must. I am now convinced that the answer lies elsewhere.’

If Adelaide guessed what he meant, she gave no indication beyond a slight frown. Gilpin pressed on.

He really showed great wisdom. He dwelt – how as a Christian could he not? – upon the need for reconciliation. He dwelt upon the evil of ancient feuds. ‘The sins of the father, Miss Albion, cannot be visited upon the son.’ He dwelt, above all, upon the paramount need to save Fanny. ‘I think’, he said penetratingly, ‘that you know to what I am referring.’

‘I have not’, old Adelaide said invincibly, ‘the least idea.’

‘And yet, Madam,’ another voice came quietly but firmly from the doorway, ‘I believe that you have.’

And Mr Martell entered the room and made her a polite bow. Although told by Gilpin to wait in the covered carriage outside, he had entered the house and been quietly listening for some time.

Adelaide went pale, looked from Martell to Gilpin and then enquired acidly: ‘You brought this villain here?’

‘I did,’ the vicar confessed, ‘but I am convinced he is no villain. Quite the reverse, in fact.’

‘Kindly leave, Mr Gilpin, and take this villain’ – she deliberately used the word again – ‘with you.’ Her eyes seemed to fix themselves upon a distant point beyond the panelling. ‘I see, Sir, that even clergymen betray the trust of their friends nowadays. But my family are accustomed to dealing with villains, murderers and seducers, even if this is the first time that a clergyman has introduced them to our house.’

‘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 all. 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 head 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.

‘How can this be? I do not know. It is true, as Mr Gilpin said, that I was at that time in some distress. I remember, that afternoon, that my mind had been much upon my dear father, who had been unwell. I had been considering whether to return from Bath to be with him, because I had a strong intimation that he might be close to his end – an intimation, alas, which proved to be correct. It was with a mind full of such thoughts that I wandered, somewhat abstracted, around that shop. I do not even remember looking at the lace, but I suppose that, with my mind entirely elsewhere, as I passed by the table, I must have placed it in my bag. Perhaps, in my abstraction I imagined I was somewhere else, at home perhaps. For gentlemen.’ Her voice now rose. ‘How, under what influence, for what possible motive should I steal a piece of lace for which I had no need? Why should I, heiress to a great estate, devoted to my family and to preserving their good name, suddenly risk all for a crime I had no possible reason to commit?’

She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Gentlemen, I have been offered the best lawyers to represent me, and I considered using them. They would, I have no doubt, have tried to throw doubt upon the motives, the veracity, the reliability of the good people who are my accusers. During the time before this trial I have been kept in the common gaol. I have lost my good name, my father, my aunt, even my family house. God has seen fit to take everything from me.’ She spoke with such feeling, now, that just for a moment she was unable to go on. ‘But this terrible passage of time has convinced me of one thing. I must come before you and speak nothing but the most simple truth. I throw myself entirely upon your wisdom and your mercy.’ She turned. ‘My Lord, I have nothing more to say.’

It did not take the jury long. Even the shopkeeper was ready to believe her. How did the jury find her?

‘Not guilty, My Lord.’

She was free. As she left the courtroom with her dear friends, however, Fanny felt no elation. Just outside the door, standing with a beadle, she saw the poor girl who was to be transported and paused a moment. ‘I’m sorry about what they did to you.’

‘I’m alive,’ the girl replied with a shrug. ‘Can’t be worse for me there than here.’

‘But your family …’

‘Glad to see the back of them. They never did nothing for me.’

‘I might have been joining you,’ Fanny said quietly.

‘You? A lady? Don’t make me laugh. They’d have let you off anyway.’

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said Mr Gilpin, not unkindly.

But even so, Fanny still looked back to give the girl a pitying glance.

The marriage of Miss Fanny Albion and Mr Wyndham Martell took place later that spring. There had been some uncertainty about where the celebrations should be held, but the matter was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction when Mr Gilpin offered his vicarage, where Fanny had in any case been staying. Mr Totton, as her nearest relative, gave her away, Edward was best man and Louisa the senior bridesmaid. If the Tottons had sensed a faint coolness towards them on behalf of the bride and bridegroom, there was no sign of it upon the day, when everyone congratulated Louisa on how pretty she looked and gave it as their opinion that it could not be long before she, too, found a husband.

Three days before the wedding Fanny received one unexpected guest. He came to the door of the vicarage, bearing a gift and, although a little nervous, Fanny felt she could hardly refuse to receive him, which she did in the drawing room.

Mr Isaac Seagull was looking very spruce that day, in a smart blue coat, silk stockings and a perfectly starched cravat. With a slight bow and a curious smile, he handed her the present, which was a very fine silver salver. Fanny took it and thanked him, but could not help blushing a little, for she had not seen fit to invite him to the wedding.

Guessing her thoughts, the landlord of the Angel with his cynical, chinless face gave her a smile. ‘I shouldn’t have come to the wedding if you’d asked me,’ he said very easily.

‘Oh.’

She looked out of the window at the lawn, which was still somewhat untidy after the spring rains. ‘Mr Martell knows about our relationship.’

‘Maybe. But no need to speak of it, all the same. Nothing wrong with secrets,’ remarked the man who lived by them.

‘Mr Martell is not here at present. I’m sure he would be glad to shake your hand.’

‘Well,’ said the lander with a humour that Fanny missed, ‘I dare say I shall have the pleasure of shaking his hand one of these days.’

Then he left. And it was half an hour later that Mr Gilpin, with a wry smile, found a bottle of the very best brandy outside his back door.

‘They were all there, Mr Grockleton, did you see? The Morants and the Burrards and I don’t know who else out of Dorset.’ After her own wedding day – she had enough sense to say that – Mrs Grockleton declared it had been quite the happiest day she could remember. And nothing, nothing could compare with the moment when Fanny and Wyndham Martell, standing with her, had called to Sir Harry Burrard, who had come over smiling, and Fanny had said with such simple warmth: ‘Mrs Grockleton, I’m sure you know Sir Harry Burrard. Mrs Grockleton,’ she smiled, ‘is is our true friend.’ Which, although she scarcely knew it herself, was all that Mrs Grockleton had been waiting for someone to say all her life.

For everyone else, however, the most notable event of the day came when Mr Martell made his speech.

‘I know that many of you may be wondering,’ he declared, ‘if it is my intention to take the last Albion out of the Forest. I can assure you it is not. For while our interests must, of course, take us to Dorset and Kent, and London too, it is our intention to build a new house here, to replace Albion House.’ It was not to be on the old house’s wooded site, however, but upon a large open area just south of Oakley where he intended to lay out a park with views towards the sea. Plans for a fine classical mansion were already being drawn up. ‘And to make it clear that in our new order we have not forgotten the old,’ he cheerfully declared, ‘we have decided to call it Albion Park.’

1804

Everything was ready at Buckler’s Hard, that warm evening in July.

The last three days had been especially exciting. Over two hundred extra men had arrived from the naval dockyards at Portsmouth to help with the launching. Riggers, they were called. They were camped all around the shipyard.

The launching tomorrow would be one of the most impressive that the shipyard had ever undertaken. Two or three thousand people were coming to watch. The gentry would be there, and all sorts of great folk from London. For tomorrow they were going to launch Swiftsure.

It was only the third time in the yard’s history that they had built a great seventy-four-gun ship. Even Agamemnon had been only a sixty-four. At seventeen hundred and twenty-four tons, the ship towered over the dock. The Adamses were to be paid over thirty-five thousand pounds for building her.

Business had been brisk at Buckler’s Hard. At the age of ninety-one, old Henry Adams was still seen about the yard, but his two sons ran everything nowadays. In the last three years they had built three merchant coasters and a ketch; three sixteen-gun brigs, two thirty-six-gun frigates of which the second, Euryalus, had been built alongside Swiftsure, and the mighty seventy-four-gun herself. Another three brigs, twelve guns each, were already in production. Indeed, the yard was so loaded with work that the Adamses were often behind schedule and their profits were not all they should have been. But the completion of mighty Swiftsure was still a cause for celebration.

Puckle certainly meant to celebrate. He had been working on Swiftsure ever since the keel was laid.

They had been long years, the years of exile before that. He’d been busy enough. Isaac Seagull had dropped a discreet hint to old Mr Adams; Mr Adams had spoken to a friend at the shipbuilding yards at Deptford, on the Thames outside London. And a month or so after he had slipped away out to sea, Puckle the smuggler had been patriotically employed building ships for His Majesty’s Navy again.

The Navy had needed ships, as never before. Ever since his arrival in London, England had been at war, or close to it, with France. Out of the Revolution there had now emerged a formidable military man, Napoleon Bonaparte, a second Julius Caesar, who had made himself master of France and who, quite likely, meant to be master of the world as well. His revolutionary armies were sweeping all before them. In England, only the unbending minister, William Pitt, and the great oak ships of the British Navy stood, implacably, in his path.

They had been hard years. The war, bad harvests, French blockades had all hit Britain’s economy. The price of bread had risen sharply. There had been sporadic riots. Puckle, working hard in Deptford, had been well enough provided for; but although he could go upstream to the busy port of London, or wander up on to the high ridges and bosky woods of Kent, he missed the soft, peaty soil, the gravelly tracks, the oaks and heather of the Forest. He had longed to return. He had waited six years.

Not Mr Grockleton’s fictitious cousin, but an aunt of his wife’s, from a rich Bristol tradesman’s family, left the modest legacy that allowed the Grockletons to retire. It was with some surprise, however, that her many friends, who even included – more or less – the Burrards, learned that Mrs Grockleton did not intend, after all, to stay in Lymington. Her academy was thriving. No less than four girls from prominent landed gentry attended some of its classes. The yearly ball she now gave for the girls had become a very pleasant fixture at which only the very best of the merchant families like the Tottons and the St Barbes were to be seen with the gentry. Mr Grockleton, who had never intercepted a single cask of brandy, had even been known, rather wryly, to drink the occasional bottle left at his door by order of Isaac Seagull, who had grown quite fond of him. Why, then, should they want to move?

The fact was, although she was too polite and kind to say it, Lymington had failed Mrs Grockleton. Indeed, so had the Forest. ‘It’s those salt pans,’ she would say sadly. For the salt pans, the little windpumps and the boiling houses were still there. True, there were one or two very agreeable houses built recently at Lymington with views of the sea. A captain and two admirals graced the place, with the promise of more to come: and admirals, though they might be fierce, were very respectable.

Yet something was missing from the town even so. Perhaps it was the French. In 1795 most of them had departed on a campaign against the revolutionaries in France. They had landed there in force, fought bravely, but in vain. The expedition had not been very well supported by the British government. Few of the brave Frenchmen returned. All that was left to remind Lymington of their sojourn there were one or two aristocratic widows, a larger number of local girls who had either fallen in love with, or married, French troops and, inevitably, a number of illegitimate children, all of whom were likely to be a charge to the parish.

No, it was not enough. With its salt pans and its smugglers, Lymington, while well enough, was never going to become a place of fashion.

But what of her own position? Wasn’t she a friend of Fanny and Wyndham Martell? And of Louisa, dear Louisa, who had married Mr Arthur West? Wasn’t she, if not a regular guest at dinner, at least on terms of friendly acquaintance with the Burrards, the Morants, even Mr Drummond of Cadland? She was and that was just the trouble. She had achieved her objective. The enemy had been vanquished. She had met them and they were mortal. It might have surprised these good people to know it, but in her own capacious mind, at least, Mrs Grockleton had moved past them. The Forest was no longer large enough to contain her.

So the Grockletons went to Bath.

And with Mr Grockleton’s retirement and departure, the coast had been clear for Puckle to return.

It was all done very quietly. Isaac Seagull saw to that. His old cottage was ready for him. So was his job. And, by some Forest magic, when he walked back into the shipyard you really might have thought that no one even knew he had been gone.

And indeed, he discovered one other, pleasant continuity upon his arrival. For the great tree he had escorted across the Forest from the Rufus stone was also there, as it were, waiting to greet him. So large and fine were its timbers that Mr Adams had been holding it at the yard until he had a ship that was worthy of it. That ship had been the mighty Swiftsure. In this way, the acorn from the magical, midwinter-leafing tree had entered and become a part of one of Nelson’s finest ships.

That had been four years ago, as work had just started on Swiftsure, and he had been working on her ever since. Her launching tomorrow, therefore, in some strange way seemed a kind of affirmation to him. He had returned home, and brought a great ship into the world. At least, he would have, after tomorrow when she was launched.

The launching of a great ship was a complex and tricky business. Essentially it was necessary to transfer the vast weight of the vessel from the keel blocks on which it had been built to a slipway down which it must safely enter the water.

For days, now, Puckle had been helping the men building the wooden slideways. These were railtracks made of elm and, since they had to run down well into the water, most of the work on them had to be done at low tide. It was a muddy affair.

The business of transferring the huge weight of the ship had to be done with the utmost care. While it was being built, the ship had rested upon keel blocks made of elm wood, about five feet high and placed five feet apart. Around the outside of the hull, tall wooden poles, thirty or forty feet high, like ship’s masts, acted as scaffolding. Starting from the end nearest the water, the riggers had swiftly moved, driving in huge wooden wedges to lift the ship off the blocks and then putting in the timber props that would guide her on her path down the rails. It was a long operation requiring great skill. For everything had to go right. If the ship lurched, it could crash on its side. If the angle of the slideways were too shallow she might not launch. Too steep and she might rush down into the water and go careering off, to get stuck on the mud banks across the river. Such things had happened. If all went well, however, the rising tide coming up under the stern would just ease the ship off the blocks, the wedges holding her would be knocked away and, slowed by drag ropes, she would slide gently down into the Beaulieu River, stern first, to be towed away downstream and out into the Solent.

Puckle walked round the ship. He loved the line of the huge keel and the workmanship that had gone into it. The inner keel was made of sections of elm. Outside this was another outer keel of oak. When the ships ran down the sliderails, or if ever, later, they ran aground, it was this outer keel that would endure the scraping, protecting the inner keel from harm.

He would be staying at the yard that night, for before the ship could be launched there was still one vital job to do.

The normal time to launch a ship at Buckler’s Hard was an hour before high tide. At lowest tide, therefore, which, that night, would come shortly before dawn, gangs of men would go down to grease the slideways with melted tallow and soap. Puckle had asked to be one of them. He wouldn’t have missed this last pre-dawn preparation for anything.

*

There was a quarter-moon that night and the sky was full of stars. At Albion Park the pale, classical façade of the house stared across the faintly glimmering sweep of its lawns to the gently shelving belt of small fields and woods that sank down, as though in a contented dream, to the Solent water. Beyond that, clearly visible in the moonlight, the long line of the Isle of Wight lay like a gentle guardian.

In that handsome, ordered house, everyone was asleep. The five children of Fanny and Wyndham Martell slept happily in their nursery wing. Mrs Pride, a little elderly, now, but still very much in control – not a fly stirred in that house without her permission – slept peacefully. The entire household would be driving across to join the more than a hundred carriages, which would arrive to watch the launching of Swiftsure in the morning.

Everyone slept. Or almost everyone.

Mr Wyndham Martell was not asleep. He had been awakened an hour before by a sound from his wife and now he sat watching her thoughtfully.

It was just in the last few weeks that she had taken to talking in her sleep. He did not know why. She had done so before, usually in little bursts that lasted for a week or two and then subsided, as though there were complex hidden tides in her mind about which he scarcely knew. Sometimes he could make something out. She had murmured about her aunt, about Mrs Pride, about Alice Lisle. There had also been conversations with what appeared to be Isaac Seagull. Mr Gilpin was the recipient of some of her confidences, too. But there was one dream she had which seemed to cause her particular distress; she would toss and turn, and even cry out. She had just had it again tonight.

Wyndham Martell loved his wife very much. He wanted to help her, yet was not sure what to do. Most of the conversations she had made no particular sense. Even when she was in distress, it was not always possible to understand the moans and cries she emitted. And by morning, when she awoke, she would smile at him lovingly and be well enough.

Tonight, however, he thought he had understood something more.

Wyndham Martell got up and walked to the window. The night was warm. Across the park he could see to the coast, out past the distant spit of Hurst Castle and the open sea beyond. He smiled to himself: that was the province of Isaac Seagull the smuggler. His wife’s cousin. He remembered well the night Louisa had told him that and how her malice had made him feel so sorry for Fanny. Perhaps, he thought wryly, it was the very unfolding of that dark secret that had led him to the wife he loved.

Maybe everyone, he reflected, had dark secrets within them of which they might or might not even be aware.

And then, because he loved his wife and all her secrets, he quietly left the room, went down to his private library and, sitting down at his desk, took out a piece of paper. He was going to write his wife a letter.

He paused a little while, thinking carefully, then began.

My dearest wife

Each of us has secrets and now there is something which I, too, have to confess.

It was a long letter. Dawn was almost breaking before he finished and sealed it.

At Buckler’s Hard, Puckle was busily at work. The tide was out. Slipping about contentedly in the riverside mud, he moved the heavy soaked leather rag over the wooden rail. Above him the dark bulk of Swiftsure loomed beneath the fading stars like a friend. Across the Beaulieu River a bird suddenly started singing and, glancing eastwards, Puckle saw the first faint hint of the light of dawn.

Swiftsure would be launched that day. As he glanced up again at the vessel, although he had not the words quite to express it, Puckle reflected once again how, in this huge wooden ship, the trees had become transmogrified into a second and perhaps equally glorious life. And his heart was filled with joy to know that the Forest itself, with all its secrets and many wonders, would, in this manner, pass down the slideway to be joined with the endless sea.