The Forest (67 page)

‘You be as happy as you like,’ said Pride. Was there a hint of contempt in his voice?

Even if there wasn’t, this was what Furzey heard. ‘Some people may be laughing the other side of their faces, Stephen Pride,’ he said with a note of malicious triumph that couldn’t be mistaken. ‘Some may, before long.’

‘Oh?’ Pride looked at him carefully. ‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘Never you mind. I don’t mean nothing. Or if I do, it ain’t none of your concern. Or if it is’ – Furzey warmed to his theme – ‘you’ll find out when you find out, won’t you?’

And rather pleased with this bit of high diplomacy, Furzey gave him a look which, even in the fading light, plainly said ‘You’ve got something coming to you’.

Stephen Pride shrugged and walked on. This unexpected aggression left him feeling suddenly very tired.

When he reached the door of his home, his wife took one look at him and made him sit down at once. ‘I’ll bring you some broth. You rest a while,’ she commanded.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Perhaps, he thought, he’d just sleep a few minutes. But instead of sleeping he found the events of the last few hours passing through his mind: playing with his grandchildren, talking to Jim, meeting Betty; the strange fact that she knew nothing about the message Furzey had brought; the visitors coming to Moyles Court that night; Furzey’s unusual air of triumph.

Suddenly, he sat bold upright, with a shock – as though a flash of lightning had passed, with a great thunderclap, through his brain. A moment later a tide of cold panic surged through him. He was horribly awake. ‘Lord Jesus,’ he cried and stood up, as his wife hurried anxiously to his side. ‘That devil!’ he exclaimed. He did not know exactly what this business meant, but he saw the shape of it. The message Furzey had delivered must be a fake. That’s why he was so pleased with himself. He had Jim going over to Moyles Court where visitors were expected. No doubt they were dissenters. Dissenters? Fugitives, more like. That was it. The Forest man’s instincts told him at once that it was a trap.

‘Got to get the ponies,’ he cried, pushing past his wife. ‘Don’t worry,’ he explained, as he checked himself and gave her a kiss. ‘I haven’t lost my wits. Come with me.’

By the barn, saddling up both their ponies with feverish haste he explained to her what he knew. ‘You better take the small pony. Get up to Jim’s, fast as you can. If he hasn’t gone, tell him to stay home, but don’t tell him why. I don’t want him coming after me, see? Just tell him George Furzey made a mistake.’

‘What’ll you do?’

‘Go and warn them at Albion House. Tell them to stay put if they haven’t gone.’

‘And then?’

‘I’ll ride across the Forest. Cut Jim off if you miss him. Then I’ll go on to Moyles Court.’

‘Oh, Stephen …’

‘I’ve got to. If it’s a trap, that means Dame Alice …’

She nodded. There was no argument. Minutes later, husband and wife were cantering along the edge of the heath northwards. The dusk was gathering, but even the stars would be enough for these two, who knew every inch of the Forest. At the place where the track led towards Albion House, Stephen Pride and his wife of fifty years paused for a moment and kissed, before riding their separate ways.

‘God protect you,’ she murmured, as she glanced back, with love and fear in her heart, at the dark path through the trees into which he had vanished.

Colonel Thomas Penruddock stared at William Furzey in the candlelight of the hall of the magistrate’s house at Hale.

Although he had looked pleased with himself when he first arrived, Furzey was a little nervous now. With their braided uniforms and yellow sashes, their huge riding boots with folding tops, their broad leather belts and clanking swords the colonel and his dozen men seemed larger than life.

‘You are sure these men are at Moyles Court?’ Colonel Penruddock demanded severely.

But about this Furzey seemed confident. ‘They were when I left them,’ he said. ‘That’s for sure.’

‘We leave here at midnight,’ Penruddock ordered his men. ‘We’ll surround the house and move in before dawn. That’s the time to catch them off guard.’ He turned to Furzey. ‘You will remain here until morning.’ Having completed his orders, Colonel Thomas Penruddock bade his cousin goodnight and went to an upstairs chamber and lay down.

But he did not sleep.

Alice Lisle. This was the third time she had come into his life. Once when she murdered his father; once when he had found her with the king; and now, caught with traitors. This time, surely, would be the last: the completion.

Retribution. It was not only his father. She represented everything he hated: those sour Puritan looks, that humourless self-righteousness; the Puritans, it seemed to him, believed that God’s kingdom was only served by the cruel destruction of all that was lovely, chivalrous, gallant. Alice Lisle the Cromwellian, the regicide, the thief of other men’s estates, the murderer. This was how he saw her. How could it be otherwise?

Yet as he lay there, a colonel surrounded by his troops, with all the authority of the kingdom behind him, Thomas Penruddock found that he was conscious above all of his power. The evil old woman down at Moyles Court seemed in his mind’s eye no less hateful, but small and frail. Like some vicious old fox that has terrorized an area for many seasons, she was in her decline now and all nature called for her to die. He was not going to destroy the woman, he told himself; he was just going, as one goes to a guttering candle, to snuff her out.

Peter Albion had taken longer than he expected and Betty had almost given up when at last, just as it was getting dark, he arrived. He looked tired. At the suggestion that they might ride on across the Forest to Moyles Court that night he looked dismayed; and Betty was just wondering what to do when Stephen Pride arrived.

‘I thought you’d still be here,’ he said. ‘I got a message for you.’

He’d had to think hard on the way. If he told Betty the truth, that her mother was in danger, he was afraid she might go running back to Moyles Court whatever anyone said. So he’d prepared a lie – not a very good one, but he thought it would do.

‘I just sent the groom back to your mother. Met him at Boldre bridge. I told him you were here. She says to stay. She doesn’t want you riding across the Forest at night.’ The obvious relief on Peter Albion’s face told him he need say no more.

‘Thank you, Stephen.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think my cousin Peter has any desire to ride more today.’

The young man smiled too and Pride nodded his head politely. A handsome young man, he thought. Just right for Betty. It seemed to him that Betty might think so too. ‘I’ll be getting home then,’ he said as casually as he could and rode back to the lane.

A minute later he was urging his pony forward as fast as he could, up the lane towards the quiet little ford. Soon after, he had crossed it and was making his way swiftly up the long track that led to the western heath.

There was no time to lose. Jim might be out there, ahead of him somewhere. And at Moyles Court Dame Alice had probably already received her visitors. Had the trap been sprung by now? Late at night was more likely, he thought. Such things were usually done late at night.

His heart was beating fast. He felt a little light-headed as he came out on to the edge of the western heath by Setley. It was many a year since he’d gone rushing about all day and all night like this. His physical exhaustion seemed to have evaporated, though. He was too nervous and too excited to be tired.

The stars were gleaming brightly now. He decided to cut straight up north, skirting Brockenhurst, then take the track that led out above Burley. That was the way Jim would be going. He pushed his pony along. Thank God it was a sturdy little creature. That pony could carry him all day … and all night.

He skirted Brockenhurst. Ahead of him lay a section of forest known as Rhinefield. A quarter moon was rising. Its light caught the pale sand and gravel along the path. It was like a silver trail of stardust across the heather.

On any other errand his heart would have filled with joy at such a sight – the open heath of the Forest under starlight, the Forest he loved. His heart was pounding. He took deep gasps of the warm August air. The hoofs of his pony were beating, beating upon the path.

There was something out there, ahead of him. He felt a little strange. Something pale out on the heath: cattle probably. No, the moon. The moon was on the heath. He shook his head to clear it. And then a great white flash, like lightning came with an awesome thunder into his head.

And just short of Rhinefield, Stephen Pride, having suffered a single stroke, fell on to the gentle warmth of the Forest floor.

Alice Lisle stood at the open window and looked out.

Above the trees on the small ridge opposite the starlit sky had clouded over, as though it had been muffled with a blanket. Moyles Court was quiet in the silence before the dawn.

No one had come since the visitors had arrived that evening. She had not been surprised when Betty did not arrive back, for the simple reason that she knew exactly where Betty was. A message from Tryphena on Sunday had warned her that young Mr Albion had arrived back in London early and that, having called at the house, he was almost certainly on his way to the Forest. Betty’s suggestion that she should ride to Albion House hadn’t deceived her mother for a moment.

She hadn’t tried to stop her. If young Peter Albion was as determined as that, and if her twenty-four-year-old daughter had deceived her in order to meet him, it was clear that there was nothing more she could do. Albion House, quite likely, would return to the Albions. It was fate. Whatever her reservations, young Peter was actually a better match than any of her other daughters had found: better placed to succeed, more gently born. Perhaps it was the result of being back in the familiar surroundings of the Forest, but it seemed to her now that if this was what Betty chose it was useless to fight it any more.

But now, suddenly, there was shouting in the dark. Men were moving outside. There was a bang at the door. She heard a voice.

‘Open! In the name of the king.’

More bangs. Alice ran to the next chamber. Dunne and Hicks were in there. ‘Wake up!’ she cried. ‘Quickly. You must hide.’ The other man, Nelthorpe, was in the next room. She found him roused already, pulling on his boots.

They ran down the oak staircase, all four of them, in the darkness, the men clumping so loudly in their boots that it was hard to believe they wouldn’t be heard at Ringwood.

‘The back,’ she hissed, leading the way to the kitchens. But even as they got there they could see shadows outside the window there. ‘Hide as best you can,’ she told them and hurried to the stairs. Running up, her heart beating wildly, she found two of the servants already standing on the landing, looking pale and frightened. ‘Close the beds,’ she whispered, indicating the two rooms where the men had been. ‘Leave no sign. Quickly.’ The hammering on the doors, both front and back, was growing louder. Another minute and they might start to break them down. Again she raced downstairs, seized a candle from a table where she had left it the night before, lit it from the glowing embers of the fire and went to the door. Taking a deep breath she began to turn the heavy key and slip the big iron bolt. The last thing she thought, before she opened the door, was that she must not show fear.

Thomas Penruddock looked down at the woman before him.

She was in her nightdress, a shawl covering her shoulders. Her hair, mostly grey, was hanging loose. Even in the candlelight she looked pale. She stared at him. ‘What is the meaning of this, Sir?’

‘In the king’s name, Madam, we are to search your house.’

‘Search my house, Sir? In the middle of the night?’

‘Yes, Madam. And you will let us in.’

There were two large troopers behind the colonel Alice now realized. They looked as if they were about to push past her. She tried to appear calm.

But it was at this moment that she also realized her terrible mistake. If the troops entered the house, was there really any chance they wouldn’t find the three men? If they had been sleeping innocently, it might not look so bad, but the fact that she was trying to hide them suggested guilt. What could she do? A panic seized her; she saw that her hand, holding the candle, had started to shake. She fought to master herself. Perhaps she could bluff. It was her only hope now. ‘By what warrant do you dare to invade my house, Sir?’ She stared at him haughtily.

‘My warrant is the king’s name, Madam.’

‘Produce your warrant, Sir,’ she cried furiously, although she hadn’t the least idea if a warrant were needed or not, ‘or be gone.’ Did he hesitate? She wasn’t sure. ‘So,’ she cried again, ‘I see you have none. You are nothing but common trespassers, then.’ And she started to close the door.

Penruddock’s boot was in the way. A moment later the two troopers had pushed rudely past her. Then two more, out of the shadows, came blundering in.

‘Lights,’ voices were calling. ‘Bring lights.’

It did not take long to find them. Beyond the kitchen lay a large, barn-like room known as the malt-house. Hicks the minister, who was a large, corpulent man, and Dunne the baker had tried to bury themselves under a pile of refuse in there and were dragged out, looking foolish. Hicks’s companion Nelthorpe, a tall, thin fellow, had tried to hide in the kitchen chimney.

Penruddock addressed them briefly. ‘Richard Nelthorpe, you have already been outlawed as a rebel; John Hicks, you also are known to have been with Monmouth; James Dunne, you are their willing accomplice. You are all arrested. Alice Lisle,’ he added crossly, ‘you are harbouring traitors.’

‘I am giving shelter to a respectable minister,’ she retorted scornfully.

‘To traitors fleeing, Madam, from Monmouth’s rebellion.’

‘I know nothing of that, Sir,’ she replied.

‘A judge and jury will decide that. You are under arrest.’

‘I?’ She glanced down at her nightdress. ‘And what sort of soldier are you, Sir,’ she said with contempt, ‘who comes to arrest women in the night?’ She defied him; she despised him openly in front of his own troops.