The Forest (72 page)

Yet none of this seemed to alter Peter Albion’s view. ‘The king is just going to make himself more hated. I predict nothing but trouble,’ he announced.

And I predict nothing but trouble for you
, Alice thought,
if you don’t keep your mouth shut
.

Her terror was that he was going to propose marriage. She had no doubt that Betty would want him. And then what was she to do? Refuse her consent? Cut Betty off?

When she confided her fears to Tryphena and even that she was afraid Betty might elope, Tryphena with her usual tact, nodded sagely. ‘We must consider, Mother, that although Betty loves you, if she had to choose between you and a young man she will certainly choose him.’

The best course, surely, was to keep the two apart. Once Monmouth was executed and the search for his followers dying down, Alice felt she could safely return to the Forest. Indeed, it was looking a safer place than London every day, with the threat of Peter Albion so present. But she also feared that, if she announced their departure, it might bring matters to a head with Albion and provoke a proposal.

A week after Monmouth’s execution, however, he announced that he must go down into Kent for a few days upon business. Telling him that she looked forward to seeing him on his return, Alice said a fond farewell. The very next morning she told Betty they were leaving for the country before noon.

By that night they were already at an inn twenty miles down the road.

‘We should be in Winchester by tomorrow night,’ Alice said cheerfully.

Jim Pride was surprised, two days later, to see a carriage containing Alice and Betty Lisle passing through Lyndhurst. At the same moment he saw them, Alice Lisle caught sight of him and waved for him to come over.

Betty, he noticed, was looking a bit subdued, but Alice greeted him warmly, asked after his father and mother, and demanded to know all the news.

The Forest, as it happened, had been quiet for a week,
until today. A rumour from somewhere had caused the authorities to think there might be fugitives about to embark from Lymington. There had been a house-to-house search there that morning, but nothing had been found.

‘I reckon it’ll all be quiet after this,’ Jim said.

Alice, however, had looked thoughtful. ‘I think, all the same, we won’t go to Albion House just yet,’ she said. ‘It’s too close to Lymington.’ She smiled at Pride. ‘Tell the coachman we’ll go to Moyles Court instead,’ she requested. ‘We’ve still time to get there before dark.’ Moyles Court, right across in the Avon valley, seemed a safer bet altogether.

William Furzey had just finished work for the day and he was walking up the Avon to a spot where he intended to do a little unobserved fishing, when he came upon the man on the horse. The horse was not impressive. The man was a rather frail-looking fellow, with grey hair and mild, watery blue eyes. He seemed to be lost. ‘Could you tell me’,’ he enquired, ‘the way to Moyles Court?’

William eyed him. A townsman by the look of him, a small trader or craftsman, perhaps. Didn’t sound local. William Furzey wasn’t stupid; he knew an opportunity when he saw it. The fish could wait. ‘’T’ain’t easy to find,’ he said. The house was, in fact, less than a mile off by a straight lane. The stranger looked tired. ‘I could take you there,’ William offered, ‘but it’d be out of my way.’

‘Would sixpence repay your kindness?’ A day labourer’s wage was eight pence. Sixpence from an ordinary townsman like this, therefore, was handsome. He must want to find the place badly. Furzey nodded.

He took a circuitous route. Moyles Court lay in a clearing just below the ridge that led up from the Avon valley to the heathland of the Forest. This part of the valley was quite wooded, so it wasn’t difficult for Furzey to stretch the journey to two miles, taking paths that sometimes doubled
back on themselves. Since the stranger made no remark, Furzey concluded that his sense of direction wasn’t strong. It also gave him the chance to find out more about him. Had he come from far? The man was evasive. What was his occupation?

‘I am a baker,’ his companion admitted.

A baker, from a long way off, prepared to pay sixpence to find Moyles Court. This man was almost certainly a dissenter, then, looking for that damned Lisle woman. Furzey bided his time before speaking. ‘You seek a godly lady,’ he ventured in a pious voice, at the next wrong turn he made.

‘You think so?’

‘I do. If it is Dame Alice you seek.’

‘Ah.’ The baker looked pleased. His watery blue eyes brightened hopefully.

Furzey wasn’t quite sure where this conversation would lead, but one thing was certain: the more he could learn from this man, the more chance he had of using it for profit. And the beginning of an idea was starting to form in his mind. ‘There are many good folk she has helped,’ Furzey continued. He thought of the hated Prides and mentioned the names of some of their Lymington relations. ‘But I must be careful what I say,’ he added, ‘not knowing who you may be.’

And now the poor fool smiled gladly. ‘You may know me, friend,’ he cried. ‘My name is Dunne and I come all the way from Warminster. I have a message to deliver to Dame Alice.’

Warminster: west of Sarum by twenty miles. A long way for a dissenting baker to be carrying a message. His first suspicions began to grow. This fellow might be useful indeed.

‘By what name may I know you?’ the baker asked eagerly.

Furzey hesitated. He hadn’t the least intention of giving his name to this probably dangerous friend of the cursed
Lisle woman. ‘Thomas, Sir. Just Thomas,’ he replied, adding cautiously: ‘These are difficult times for godly men.’

‘They are, Thomas. I know it.’ The baker’s watery blue eyes gave him a look of tender understanding.

Furzey led him on another hundred yards before quietly remarking: ‘If a man needed shelter, in these dangerous times, this’d be a good place, I should say.’

Yes. There was no doubt of it, the baker was looking at him gratefully. ‘You think so?’

‘I do. Praise God,’ Furzey added devoutly. He had run out of detours now, but he knew all he needed to. ‘Moyles Court lies just up there.’ He pointed. It was less than a quarter-mile. ‘Your business and that of Dame Alice is your own, Sir, so I’ll leave you here. But may I ask if you will be remaining there or returning?’

‘Returning forthwith, good Thomas.’

‘Then, if you need a guide to conduct you on your way so that you will not be seen, I’ll wait for you, if you please.’ With gratitude the baker thanked him and went upon his way.

William Furzey sat on a tree stump. There was no doubt in his mind now as to what this must mean. The baker was helping fugitives. Why else should he come and go again like this? He wanted to bring them to Dame Alice. He smiled to himself. He might have missed Monmouth himself – and several people who had helped find Monmouth had been handsomely rewarded – but if the baker’s friends were of any importance then there’d surely be something in it for him. The question was, how and where to find them? He couldn’t very well accompany this baker all the way home. But if the men were to be brought to Moyles Court … A grin spread over his face. That would bode ill, now, for that cursed Dame Alice, wouldn’t it?

An hour passed before Dunne the baker returned. One look at his face was enough. He was smiling contentedly.

‘You saw Dame Alice?’ Furzey enquired.

‘I did, my friend. And I told her of your kindness. She was curious as to who you were, but I said you were a quiet fellow who minded his own business and wished to know nothing of ours.’

‘You did right by me, Sir.’

They said no more for a while, but after about a mile the baker asked: ‘If I come again, with my friends, would you take us by a discreet way to Moyles Court?’

‘With all my heart,’ Furzey replied.

They parted near Fordingbridge.

‘Meet me here, then, in three days’ time, at dusk,’ the trusting baker said as they parted. ‘May I count upon you, Thomas?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said William, ‘you may count on me.’

Alice Lisle stared at the table, then at the letter again.

She and Betty had only arrived back at Moyles Court themselves an hour before Dunne called, so she had been rather preoccupied when he gave it to her. Perhaps, she now considered, she hadn’t paid the matter enough attention.

It was very brief. It came from a highly respectable Presbyterian minister named Hicks, whom she knew slightly. She thought she remembered him staying at Albion House once, years ago. Hicks asked if she would allow him and a friend to come for a night on his way eastwards.

It was a simple request and normally she would hardly have given it much thought. When she’d asked Dunne what this meant he had said only that he was a messenger but that Hicks seemed a most respectable man. So she had agreed that they might come there on Tuesday, which was in three days’ time, and let Dunne go. She had wondered who this man Thomas might be, who had shown Dunne the way, but there were probably many people in the area who had friends in the Lymington community. The man was obviously a well-wisher.

Yet as the evening wore on she began to have second thoughts. Had she been careless? Dunne had come a long way. What if these men were fugitives? Dunne had said nothing about that, but then he probably wanted to accomplish his mission, possibly even get them off his own hands. As for this man Thomas – could he really be trusted? The more she thought of it the less she liked it and the more she was cross with herself. A moment of weakness, a failure to keep watch, a slowing down, a weariness. Every creature in the Forest knew better than that.

She felt a sudden fear, a burst of urgency. She must put them off. She could send a messenger after Dunne in the morning. Assuming, of course, that he had returned to Warminster and not somewhere else. It was worth a try. She sighed. She’d sleep on it.

Yet every creature in the Forest, sooner or later, will be guilty of carelessness, for which the penalty can be high. In the morning, in the quiet shade of Moyles Court, she told herself that she was worrying unduly.

William Furzey didn’t waste any time. As soon as he had parted from Dunne he had continued northwards. It was a four-mile walk up to Hale, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If, by ill luck, the baker should be caught and questioned, Furzey couldn’t run any risk of being accused as an accomplice. Penruddock of Hale, therefore, was his first objective.

It was twilight when he arrived. The magistrate, about to go to bed after a busy day, was not best pleased to see the man who looked like a turnip, but as soon as Furzey began his tale he was all attention. By the time William had finished he was looking approving. ‘Fugitives. I haven’t a doubt of it,’ he said briskly. ‘You did well to come here.’

‘I’m hoping not to be the poorer for it, Sir,’ William Furzey said frankly. He’d considered bargaining at the start but wisely concluded this might irritate the magistrate.

‘Certainly.’ The other nodded. ‘It’ll depend on who they are, of course. But I’ll see you’re not the loser if we take them. You have my word.’ He gave Furzey a quick look. ‘They’ll probably think you could be useful, you know, at any trial.’

‘Yes, Sir.’ Furzey understood. ‘Whatever is wanted.’

‘Hm.’ The magistrate didn’t particularly care for this kind of business himself, but it was as well to know where one stood. ‘You say’, he resumed, ‘you’re to conduct them to Moyles Court on Tuesday night and that Dame Alice will shelter them?’

‘That’s what he told me, Sir.’

Penruddock the magistrate considered silently for a few moments. Alice Lisle, he thought grimly to himself. How the wheel turned. ‘Tell no one. Not a soul. Meet them exactly as planned. Have you a horse?’

‘I can get one.’

‘Ride straight to me as soon as they are at Moyles Court. Can you do that?’

Furzey nodded.

‘Good. You can sleep in the barn here tonight, if you wish,’ Penruddock offered kindly.

That night, before he went to bed, the magistrate wrote a message to be taken to his cousin, Colonel Thomas Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne, at dawn the next day.

George Furzey looked at William Furzey and shook his head in wonder. ‘You dog,’ he breathed. ‘You clever dog. Tell me again.’ So William repeated everything.

The magistrate had instructed him to tell no one, but William didn’t count his brother, so as soon as he was able on Sunday, he had quit the farm and crossed the Forest to Oakley, to share the news. The joy it brought George Furzey was everything William could have wished for him.

George was not a man of deep imagination. He did not
concern himself in detail with what might befall Alice Lisle. All he knew was that the woman who had cheated and humiliated his family was going to get her come-uppance. That thought was so large, and so beautiful, that all others were extinguished before it like stars before the rising sun.

‘She’ll be arrested, I reckon,’ said William.

The thought of Dame Alice being hauled off to the magistrate, humiliated in front of the whole Forest, seemed to William to be God’s perfect justice: a fitting tribute to his father’s memory. And then, as he considered the sweetness of it, another idea came into his mind like a flash of morning sunlight. ‘Know what?’ he said. ‘We could send Jim Pride along there too. If they found him at Moyles Court he’d have some explaining to do, wouldn’t he?’ He let out a chuckle. ‘We could do that, I reckon, William. We could do that, then!’