The Forest (86 page)

In the meantime, apart from Edward, there were two pleasant young women to pass the time with. Louisa Totton was a good-looking, lively girl. As for Miss Albion, while not quite so pretty, he thought her agreeable.

‘You must admit,’ Edward Totton remarked quietly to his sister, as they waited for their guest to emerge from the house, ‘I bring you only the best.’

Mr Wyndham Martell was the third eligible bachelor he had brought to the house in the space of a year. One had been a young fellow – too young, really, but heir to a large estate – who was still at Oxford with him. Another young blood he had brought with the promise of attending the local races had shown a strong interest in Louisa – so strong that when he got a little drunk she had to fight him off and he was asked to leave. Still, even these encounters had added to her small store of knowledge of human nature and the outside world; and her attitude to these encounters – although she would not have used such words – might best be expressed as: keep them coming.

Martell, however, was quite another story. Martell, as her brother put it, was ‘serious business’. He supposed she might be rather afraid of the stern landowner.

‘I’ve watched him,’ she replied. ‘He’s proud – after all, he has so much to be proud about. But he likes to be amused.’

‘So do you mean to amuse him?’

‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But I shall let him suppose
that I might.’ She glanced at the door of the house. ‘Here he comes.’

Martell was in an excellent humour. He had not been quite sure what the Tottons’ household would be like, for he had never stayed with a member of the provincial merchant class before. So far he had been agreeably surprised. The house was a handsome Georgian place with a sweep of drive and a view to the sea. It was about the size of a good rectory, the sort of home that might belong to the younger brother of the landowner, an admiral, or someone of that sort. Mrs Totton turned out to be a handsome woman of his own class, related to several families he knew. As for Mr Totton the merchant, they had only had time to speak a few words, but he seemed both sensible and easy, entirely a gentleman. If young Edward Totton had any idea that his position in society was lacking in some way, Martell considered, he should be told not to be silly, and not to insult his parents.

‘We’ll make a tour of the town first,’ said Edward as Wyndham Martell joined them. And it being a fine day, they decided to walk.

They made a leisurely progress into Lymington and down the High Street. Martell admired the shops – Swateridge the watchmakers, Sheppard the gunsmith, Wheeler’s china store – and the numerous signs of the place’s prosperous gentility. He insisted on spending some time in the bookseller’s. He noted the brass plate on the fashionable doctor’s house and that Mr St Barbe the merchant had even started a High Street bank. He learned that the postal service came down the swift turnpike road from London four days a week, arriving at the Angel Inn; as did the diligence, as the stage coach was called, from Southampton – that fifteen-mile journey being covered in as little as two and a half hours. He was impressed.

They went down to the quay, where there were several small vessels tied up, then round by the salterns before
returning to the house with a good appetite for dinner.

Mr Totton and his wife kept an excellent table. The meal began with a light pea soup and bread, followed by a fish course; this was then removed to make way for the first main course, which consisted of dishes of sirloin of beef, turkey in prune sauce, stewed venison and fried celery. The men drank claret; Louisa, who usually drank currant wine at home, joined her mother today with champagne.

The conversation was light and sociable. Mrs Totton spoke of the ancient forest deer, the king’s recent visit, of places he should see and told stories about them. Louisa, her large eyes, it seemed to Martell, hinting at reserves of humour behind her demure countenance, gave a good account of some of the plays to be seen at the playhouse and how they were acted.

Edward told him about the racecourse that was now laid out above Lyndhurst. ‘And we don’t only race horses, Martell,’ he remarked. One amusing local gentleman, it seemed, had a racing ox which he rode himself and challenged all comers to compete in a similar manner.

By the time the second course was served – potato pudding, anchovy toast, syllabubs, jugged pigeon and tarts – Martell could reasonably conclude that the seaside town below the ancient forest was probably one of the most pleasant to represent in all England.

The tablecloth had been removed, however, the jellies, nuts, pyramids of sweetmeats and plates of cheese set out, port appeared for the men and cherry brandy for the ladies, before Martell remembered to ask after Fanny Albion.

‘Poor, dear Fanny,’ cried Louisa. ‘She has, I declare, the disposition of a saint.’

There was, it seemed, small likelihood of her appearing. ‘Although you may be sure’, said Edward, ‘that we shall try to coax her out.’ Her aunt Adelaide’s lifelong friend having fallen sick in Winchester, the intrepid old lady had insisted upon getting in her carriage and going over to stay there,
despite her own advanced age, leaving Fanny and Mrs Pride in charge of old Mr Albion. Before leaving, she had given her brother strict instructions not to be ill until she came back – instructions he had already disregarded. And if the nature of his present malady remained unclear, this was only because it was too advanced, he told them, to be identified. So Fanny was stuck at home with him and didn’t feel she could get out.

‘Perhaps we should call upon your cousin,’ Martell suggested.

‘I’ll suggest it,’ said Edward, ‘but I think she’ll say no.’

Shortly after this the ladies retired and Martell was able, over the port, to question Mr Totton about the business of the town. As he had expected, Totton was thoroughly well-informed.

‘Salt, of course, has been one of our main trades here for centuries. As in other towns, you’ll find that most of the larger merchants have several businesses and salt is usually one of them. St Barbe, for instance, deals in groceries, salt and coal. The coal, by the way, fuels the furnaces in the salterns. Salt, remember, is not only used to preserve fish and meat; it’s a medicine against scurvy – vital for the Navy, therefore – it’s used in curing leather, as a flux in glass–making and metal smelting, a glaze in pottery.’

‘There are cheaper ways of making salt than from the sea, I believe.’

‘Yes. In the long run Lymington’s salterns will be threatened. But that’s a long way off yet.’

‘You export timber?’

‘Some. Less than before. The Navy and other shipbuilding seems to take most of our local supplies. The port is busy, though. Coal comes in from Newcastle. There are various merchantmen sailing to London, Hamburg, Waterford and Cork in Ireland, even Jamaica.’

‘And the local industries?’

‘Apart from those mentioned, most of the parishes have
clay, so there are a number of brickworks. That’s why you’ll find some handsome brick barns in the area nowadays. Brockenhurst’s got the biggest works. Then there’s a rope factory at Beaulieu Abbey. Rope for the Navy, of course. Some of the Forest people drift into Southampton too. Apart from the port, there are some very big coachbuilding works there now.’

‘But our greatest hope for the future’, Edward interposed with a smile, ‘lies in quite another direction. We are going to become a fashionable resort, a second Bath.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Totton laughed. ‘If Mrs Grockleton has her way. You have not met Mrs Grockleton yet, Mr Martell?’

Martell confessed that he hadn’t.

‘We are going to take tea with her,’ Edward chuckled. ‘Tomorrow.’

The next morning was occupied by a visit to Hurst Castle. Although the day was bright, a fresh breeze was coming across Pennington Marshes, causing the little windpumps by the salterns to click loudly. Mrs Beeston’s bathing house, which was situated near one of the windpumps by the beach, was deserted. In the channel between the fortress and the Isle of Wight the running waves were flecked with foam, while out in the sea beyond the waters were churning green. There was a rich, salty smell in the air. Louisa, her face a little flushed and wet with spray, looked uncommonly well as the wind blew her dark hair; and Martell, too, was conscious of his own strong heartbeat as they walked rapidly, laughing together, over the wild coastal marshes.

They were halfway back when they met the count. He was walking alone, looking sad.

Martell had already remarked upon the presence of French troops in the town and Edward had explained about them. He introduced the count to Martell, who addressed him in excellent French, and it was not long before the
Frenchman, discovering a fellow aristocrat, was anxious to make a friend.

‘You are one of us,’ he cried, taking Martell’s hand in both of his. ‘How charming that we should have found each other in this wild place.’ Although whether this referred to the marsh or to Lymington was not quite clear. He asked about Martell’s estate, his Norman ancestry, insisted that they were related, therefore, through the line of Martell-St Cyr – of which Martell blandly assured him he was entirely unaware – and enquired whether he liked to hunt, receiving an affirmative.

‘At home we hunt boar,’ he said wistfully. ‘I wish, my friend, that I could invite you to join us, but unfortunately if I go home at present’ – he gave a shrug – ‘they will cut off my head. Have you fishing also, perhaps?’ Martell assured him that he had some excellent fishing. ‘I like to fish,’ said the count.

As this elicited only a polite bow and a brief silence, Edward cut in to inform the Frenchman that they were going to take tea with Mrs Grockleton and that they must return home.

‘A remarkable woman,’ the count replied. ‘I must bid you
au revoir
, then, my dear friend,’ he said to Martell. ‘I love to fish,’ he added hopefully; but his English friends were moving on and so he continued, sadly, towards the windpumps by the sea.

‘As you see, Mr Martell,’ said Mrs Grockleton at three o’clock that afternoon as, brushed and sedately dressed, they took tea in her drawing room, ‘there are great possibilities for Lymington.’

Mr Martell assured her that he found the town admirable.

‘Oh, Mr Martell, you are too obliging, I’m sure. There is so much to be done.’

‘No doubt, Madam, you will transform the landscape just as Capability Brown would make a park.’

‘I, Sir?’ She almost blushed at what she took to be flattery. ‘I can do nothing, although I hope I may encourage. It is the situation of the place, and its residents, and its royal patrons who will effect the transformation. And it will come. I think I see it clearly.’

‘The sea is bracing, Madam,’ said Martell, noncommittally.

‘The sea? To be sure the sea is bracing,’ cried Mrs Grockleton. ‘But have you seen those ugly windpumps, those furnaces, those salterns? They will have to go, Mr Martell. Would any person of fashion wish to bathe under the gaze of a windpump?’

The question seemed unanswerable; but considering that the leading merchants of the town, including his hosts, were in the salt trade, Martell felt bound to disagree. ‘Perhaps a suitable bathing place may still be found,’ he suggested.

Whether Mrs Grockleton would have allowed this he did not learn since at this moment the master of the house appeared.

Martell had been told what to expect in Samuel Grockleton and he saw that Edward’s description had been accurate; although to insist upon referring to the Customs officer as ‘The Claw’ was, perhaps, a little cruel. He had no sooner sat down and accepted his wife’s offer of tea when the maid who was assisting Mrs Grockleton tripped and upset the cup of hot tea on his leg.

‘Alack-a-day!’ cried Mrs Grockleton. ‘You have scalded my poor husband. Oh, Mr Grockleton.’ But that gentleman, though he winced, got up and, with admirable presence of mind, took a vase of flowers from a table and poured the cold water over his leg. ‘What are you about, my dear husband?’ she demanded a little crossly now.

‘Cooling the scald,’ he replied grimly and sat down again. ‘I may as well have that walnut cake, Mrs Grockleton,’ he now observed.

Martell, who rather admired this blunt good sense,
decided to engage his host in conversation at once, so asked him frankly if he considered the trade in smuggling to be large in the Forest.

‘The same as Dorset, Sir,’ the Customs Officer replied.

Since Martell knew perfectly well that from Sarum westwards, across the whole of Dorset and the West Country, there was probably not a single bottle of brandy on which duty had been paid, he contented himself with a nod of the head. ‘Can the trade ever be stopped?’ he enquired.

‘On land, I should say not,’ Grockleton answered. ‘For the simple reason that it would take too many officers. But one day it can and will be severely limited by sea patrols. As in all our nation’s affairs, Sir, the sea is the key. Our land forces are generally of small use.’

‘Ships to intercept the goods at sea? They’d have to be swift, and well armed.’

‘And well manned, Sir, too.’

‘You’d use naval captains?’

‘No, Sir. Retired smugglers.’

‘Brigands in royal service?’

‘By all means. It always worked before. Sir Francis Drake and his like in the days of good Queen Bess, Sir, were all pirates.’

‘Mr Grockleton, fie,’ cried his wife. ‘What are you saying?’