Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [526]
“Did you see the highwayman?”
“It’s all the boy thinks of,” Jonathan explained. It seemed that in recent months a highwayman had been making a point of robbing travellers on the roads around Bath; indeed, he had made such a nuisance of himself that the Forest family, who had shares in so many turnpikes, had even offered the astounding sum of £500 for his capture.
“He stole ten pounds from a coach with a lady in it the other day,” Jonathan told him with a laugh, “and he doffed his hat so politely to the lady that a gentleman riding by at the time supposed him to be her personal acquaintance.”
“I didn’t,” Adam had to confess, “but I’ll look out for him next time I go there.”
“Don’t come here again without seeing him,” Frances cried, “or however you fought in America, Ralph will think nothing of you at all.” And she laughed gaily at her brother.
“But tell us about Washington,” Jonathan continued.
There was so much to tell, and much to hear. Mr Harris was still alive, but very old. Yes, there were still theatricals in the close with the Misses Harris, Miss Poore, and the other young ladies of the close in which Frances Shockley also took part. There had been a great visit from the king and queen last year, and King George had reviewed the local militia on the high ground near the town. Why, to be sure, Frances supposed it was very much the same in the close as it was when he was a boy. When she told him about the school for young ladies she attended, Adam could only smile as he thought of his own easy and genteel days at school there.
His father, too, had news: Sir George Forest had died recently but his son Sir Joshua was as shrewd a man as his father. Jonathan himself had only given up his employment as their steward two years before, despite his advancing years.
“I might have continued longer,” he explained, “but Forest has left Avonsford, and his new estates are too widely scattered for an old man like me.”
The manor house at Avonsford, with its chequerboard stone, flint walls and its modest park, no longer suited young Sir Joshua Forest. It had done so while the family was content to figure as gentry, but Sir Joshua wanted something more.
“You remember the Bouverie family who took over the estates by Clarendon,” his father said. “They’ve become earls of Radnor now: nearly as great as Pembroke himself.” He smiled. “And young Joshua Forest means to do the same thing. He’s kept some of the estates around Sarum, but he’s purchased many more in the north of the county and he’s building himself a great nobleman’s house there. All too much for me to care for.”
“Does he still appear in Salisbury?”
“Oh yes. He has a fine house in the close now for when he comes to visit. You’ll see it, for I’m particularly instructed to inform him when you arrive. ’Tis not every day that Sarum sees a heroic captain back from America, my dear boy. You’re quite a figure you know.”
And so it proved. Despite the fact that he had not yet seen a tailor and cut a sorry figure, his sister Frances proudly conducted him round the close the very next morning. Before they had reached the choristers’ green he found he had four invitations to dine, and the most anxious entreaties from three sets of elderly spinsters to call upon them as soon as possible.
“Why, all the old ladies of the close will gobble you up in a week,” Frances cried in delight.
The cathedral itself was shut that year for repairs, and he saw with sadness that the old belfry had had its tower and most of its bells removed.
“They say it was unsafe,” Frances explained, “but then it took them twenty years to do anything about it. We move slowly here, brother Adam, but we get there in time,” and she happily took his arm.
His reception was no less warm in the town. For when, later that day, he entered the coffee house in Blue Boar Row where the gentlemen of the town liked to meet, he had a similar experience.
But the greatest accolade, he thought, took place that evening when young Ralph came alone to his room and asked with great solemnity if he could, please, see his wound.