Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [410]
He stayed quite still for whole minutes, wrapt in the beauty of it, almost forgetting that it was this house and its occupant who had destroyed everything he had. For this morning he had come to take his final leave.
“I will go,” he murmured sadly, “as soon as the swans return.”
The new manor house at Avonsford was certainly a fine affair – finer even than young Will could know, since he had never been inside.
It occupied the same site as the old building that had belonged to the Godefrois. But their crumbling house had been so neglected for fifty years that only bits of it had been incorporated into the new structure. Built of the same grey stone it was now a splendid residence.
“Fit for a gentleman to live in,” the owner had remarked with truth.
The owner of this gentleman’s house was Robert Forest.
It was ten years since John Wilson and his son Robert, merchants of Salisbury, had moved out of the city; and to mark this change in their social status from merchant to gentleman, they had taken a new surname, Forest, which seemed to them to suggest an ancient connection with the land.
For some years after that, John Wilson had continued his spider-like existence in the house in New Street chequer, seldom seen outside, but still becoming secretly richer each year, while Robert and his family had lived at Avonsford Manor. The manor was leased from its new overlord the Bishop of Salisbury for a term of three lives, but it was a lease which could be extended by future generations and the Forests had immediately set to work to make improvements that would make the house worthy of their newfound gentility.
It consisted of a spacious central hall, on each side of which was a large chamber with a handsome bay window. One of these, the larger, was a fine solar not unlike the original hall of the Godefroi knights. It had a high arched ceiling displaying dark oak beams and a bay window at one end with glass almost to the floor, which flooded the room with light. But it was the smaller room on the other side of the hall that was Robert Forest’s particular pride: for this was called the winter parlour. It had a fine window, too, though smaller, and a huge fireplace in front of which he and his family could sit; but its glory was the splendid wooden panelling round its walls, so perfect that once inside, the visitor felt as though he had entered an intricate wooden box, and every panel of this was carved in the new and elegant linenfold design.
When old John had seen it and queried the choice, Robert told him: “It’s the latest thing. All the gentry are doing it – those that can afford to.” And the old man had offered no further comment.
It was in the winter parlour, in a heavy oak display cupboard, that he also kept the small collection of books that belonged in a gentleman’s house. There were several books on heraldry and gentility; there was an illustrated manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and also a new prose version of the tales of King Arthur. It was compiled by an obscure knight who had served at least one term in gaol for theft, called Thomas Malory, but since Robert Forest had heard a nobleman recommend it, he had purchased the book at once.
There was one other item of which he was proud.
“I saw it in London,” he told his father. “A man named Caxton, who was governor of the mercer’s guild, has started to make these things with a machine.” And he showed old John a handsomely bound book – a collection of philosophical sayings – that was of interest not because of its contents but because the letters had been made by a printing machine rather than by hand.
“With this printing machine he can turn out books by the yard,” Robert explained, and old John agreed that the new invention was remarkable. But he frowned nonetheless as he inspected the page.
“Why, these words are written in different dialects,” he complained. It was true. Caxton had, as most men did, his own views about how English words were to be pronounced and