Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [534]
The company denounced it as infamous, but when Forest asked Shockley what he thought, Adam paused before replying.
Personally, he thought it reasonable, but he had no wish to offend his fellow guests; so he contented himself with saying:
“A little reform early may be wiser than none until it is too late.”
This seemed to satisfy the party, and the conversation moved on.
But for the first time he became aware that in some indefinable way he was being tested, and he remembered his father’s word of caution to him before he came. He wondered what was coming next.
Not another question, it turned out, but the next course: pigeons and asparagus, teal, woodcock, a pair of whistling plovers, and more red wine.
The conversation turned to lighter subjects: to Mr Gibbon’s new book on the fall of the Roman Empire, Mr Sheridan’s new play, a fine painting by Gainsborough; and although Shockley realised that Forest’s hand was gently guiding them for some, no doubt carefully calculated, purpose of his own, he could not help admiring the art with which it was done.
Though he had not stepped into the fashionable world, Adam was glad to find that on most matters he could hold his own. But even in this genial banter, his instinct told him that Forest was noting carefully everything he said.
Obviously Sir Joshua was satisfied, for suddenly he declared:
“I think Captain Shockley would be interested in a curiosity that was recently discovered,” and he left the table for a few minutes to return with a small piece of parchment which he passed round. “This was found in a box at Avonsford Manor just before we left the place,” he explained. “Who can tell me what it is?”
It was a single drawing. It was hard to guess the date, but it could hardly have been less than two centuries old.
It depicted a circular maze – not one in which a man would get lost, but one in which he would follow a winding path symmetrically arranged in four sectors that would lead him tediously back and forth until he finally reached the centre. Under it was the legend:
MAZE AT AVONSFORD
“And I found the place,” Forest said. “I’m sure of it: in a circle of yew trees on a hill above the manor. I could even see faint traces of marks upon the ground which seemed to correspond with this plan. What is it, Captain Shockley?”
Adam had to confess he had no idea.
“I believe ’tis one of those formal arrangements they cared for so much in the time of Queen Elizabeth,” one of the party suggested. “Usually they were made with hedges.”
“’Tis what I supposed,” Forest agreed.
But it was the clergyman, glancing carelessly at the parchment, who shook his head.
“No sir. I know something of antiquities and I can tell you it is far older than that. This is a pagan design, sir, from before Christian or even Roman times. It’s as Celtic as Stonehenge.” And he spoke with such finality that no one could doubt this was the history of the miz-maze. That a medieval knight had made his lonely pilgrimage upon it, none of that distinguished company ever knew.
Now came a lobster. A further choice of wine.
The wine was very good. Adam was not in the least fuddled, but he felt warm and relaxed. Each course, he realised, had brought a new topic of conversation, yet Forest had turned the subject so neatly one never noticed the change. He gazed at the lobster before him. How was it they were now discussing agriculture? He could not remember.
“The time for the small farmer is nearly over, I’m afraid,” Forest was saying. “All my tenants are on short leases now and I’ve had Acts of Parliament to enclose three thousand acres in the north of the county. But I’m not sure I shall do it even so. Some say I shouldn’t.”
Shockley knew that in the cheese and dairy country to the north there had been a deal of enclosing of land. A landlord had to apply for an Act of Parliament to take over common land in this way, but this permission was easily got. Some protested that poor farmers were being driven off the land, yet could not deny that the newly enclosed areas were usually more