Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [440]
But to Abigail this was not the point: the logic of her case was unassailable. “Some are chosen, some are not,” she told Peter. And when he asked anxiously: “Are we chosen?” she would only reply: “Perhaps.”
“We must obey God’s law and trust in Him,” she declared. “God’s law is denied in England now. We’ll go to Geneva.”
And so, during the month of August, the couple collected all the money they could and made their preparations.
They never left.
For at the end of August 1553, the wife of Peter’s cousin Robert Mason suddenly and unexpectedly died in childbirth, and the distracted Robert was left in the cottage at Fisherton with no help, a surviving baby and a brood of young children. Peter and Abigail were with them when it happened.
It took Abigail one day to decide what must be done; the choice she made was selfless.
“We must stay,” she told Peter, with tears, for once, in her eyes. “It cannot be God’s will that we should leave our cousin alone like this.”
“We shall not go to Geneva then?”
She shook her head sorrowfully.
“Not yet. We must stay,” she replied sadly, “and suffer.”
“Then I had better unpack my tools,” the cutler replied, with secret relief.
From that day, Abigail had two families to care for.
Shockley had many matters, other than religion, to consider at this time.
For three years the harvests had been poor; there was a sense of discomfort and unease in the countryside and it was hard not to be affected by it. More serious, from his point of view, was that the booming cloth market had led to overproduction.
“Our Fleming may be a good trader,” he told Forest, “but every month the merchant adventurers are complaining there’s too much cloth coming into Antwerp. Prices are falling. Are you sure we are wise to be setting up for more production now?”
But to his surprise Forest only smiled.
“What will happen when the glut gets worse?” he asked his young partner.
“Merchants will be ruined,” Shockley replied.
Forest nodded.
“Exactly. In a year or two there’ll be a crisis. But it will pass. The underlying market is strong. And when the crisis comes, we shall be trading, and we’ll buy up spare cloth at cheap prices from those who can’t afford to keep it any longer.” He smiled. “I’ve got enough money to ride out a dozen storms, Shockley. Let’s get to work.”
The two men would often ride over to Forest’s secondary estates, which lay the other side of Wilton to where the workshops were being set up, and whenever they passed the gates of Lord Pembroke’s great house there Forest would remark:
“That’s the man to watch, Edward. He’s even importing cloth workers from overseas.”
It was on one of these occasions that they saw a strange sight.
Just as they came to Pembroke’s gates, a coach with outriders came rumbling by from the west at such speed that they had to pull violently to one side to let it past. As it did so, the outriders flung stones at the gates, and from inside the coach Shockley heard a string of curses, apparently directed at the house. With a tremendous racket and much splashing of mud, the extraordinary cortège rumbled out of sight.
“What was that?” Shockley asked in amazement.
Forest grinned.
“That was Lord Stourton,” he replied.
Shockley knew him by name of course. Though their contact with Sarum had been sporadic over the centuries, everyone had heard of the ancient lords of Stourton who had ruled over parts of west Wiltshire for centuries. But he had never caught sight of him before.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s taken a hatred to Lord Pembroke,” Forest told him.
“Why?”
“Who knows? Perhaps because the Herberts came here recently; perhaps because they’re so powerful.” He shook his head. “Only a fool makes an enemy of Pembroke. But Stourton’s always making enemies. Some say he’s mad.”
Once they encountered Pembroke himself. He was riding quietly along the lane with two gentlemen, and to Forest’s profuse salute he gave a courteous but brief nod in reply. Shockley studied him as he passed and noted his long, aquiline face and hard, thoughtful eyes. Forest turned to him afterwards: