Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [540]
The last letter that Adam Shockley ever received from his father was characteristic. It came in 1790, when he and Mary had been in Pennsylvania for seven years.
My dear Adam,
I thank you for your letter, received last year. Sarum is quiet as usual, but perhaps you will be interested to learn that great changes are being made in our cathedral by Mr Wyatt the architect. The old belfry is gone – dismantled – grassed over and I do not mourn its passing. The view of the church is much improved. So will shortly be that great area of crooked tombstones and mud we call the graveyard. ’Tis all smoothed over, the gravestones gone, and laid out as lawns.
But the church – the screens are removed, the antique coloured glass is all broken up, and, if you please, thrown in the town ditch. The Hungerford and Beauchamp chantry chapels are gone too. I cannot describe to you adequately the effect of the fellow Wyatt’s labours – ’tis a most astounding work of destruction. There has been nothing like it since the Reformation. The entire church within is now like a single great barn, with plain light, plain stone, nothing to stay the eye as it strays from one naked grey surface to another.
’Tis greatly admired.
Forest is recently made a lord. He had not forgiven you for deserting him. He owns both land and cotton factories in the north, I understand; but his affairs grow too large for my poor comprehension now.
I am sorry that you never saw young Mr Pitt come to power. He is the third son, you know, of the great Chatham, and I am bound to say has acted as boldly in peace as ever his great father did in time of war. William Pitt younger is a most economical fellow – as we need after all our wars with your America. He now taxes not only the windows of great houses but even my modest number. I was obliged to brick one of them up. And he taxes us not only for our manservants, of whom I now have none, but serving girls as well. I tell my Jenny, who is a good girl, that though Mr Pitt may consider her a luxury, she shall nonethless never be put out of doors by me.
The king was mad last year but is recovered. The Radicals complain he was never sane.
There has been a Revolutinn in France. King Louis is imprisoned, I think, and his queen too. We await to know what this portends. The enthusiasts say ’tis the dawn of a new age. I hope not.
And now I turn to a most disagreeable matter. Your sister Frances is to be married. The name of the man is Mr Porteus, a young clergyman of very substantial income.
Your sister has become a great favourite of our Bishop Barrington who – except for his allowing the ass Wyatt to ruin the cathedral – I think highly of. I fancy by marrying your sister, Mr Porteus seeks to please him; and since I shall leave her but a small income, and Ralph without a protector in the world, I suppose I should be glad of his offer. Frances is twenty-five now and so it is more than time she was settled.
So there the matter rests. I have had to accept him. Ralph is full of radical notions. I shall send him to talk to Porteus who, you may be sure, has none.
I grow very old. My three score years and ten were done nine years ago. But many Shockleys are cursed with long lives.
I regret that you cannot see Mr Porteus. You would relish him.
Pray give my duties to your good wife.
Yr. affectionate father,
J.S.
BONEY
1803
It was the dead of night; there was no moon. In the shallow harbour below the small but ancient town of Christchurch no sound broke the cold stillness of the October night, except the faint murmur of a light wind.
The harbour was empty.
On the island side of the harbour, the flat marshes extended for several miles before giving way to the gravel, peat and sandy soil of the huge deserted