The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [129]
Totton woke with a perceptible start and stared at the boy. He had not been sleeping deeply but it took him a moment to focus his mind. Jonathan had that slightly doubtful look on his face, which suggests a child is hoping for a permission he expects to be refused.
‘Yes, Jonathan.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
Totton prepared himself. He was fully awake now. He sat up straight and tried to smile. Perhaps, if the request were not too foolish, he would surprise the boy and grant it. He would like to please him. ‘You may.’
‘Well. The thing is …’ Jonathan took a deep breath. ‘You know the race between your ship from Southampton and Seagull’s boat?’
‘I do indeed.’
‘Well. I don’t think he’ll say yes anyway, but I was wondering: if Alan Seagull said I could, do you think it would be all right if I sailed with him?’
‘In Seagull’s boat?’ Totton gazed at him. It was a few moments before he could quite take it in. ‘For the race?’
‘Yes. It’s only to the Isle of Wight,’ Jonathan added helpfully. ‘I mean, we don’t go out to sea, do we?’
Totton did not answer. He couldn’t. He stared away from Jonathan, towards the door of the parlour where his wife used to sit. ‘Do you not know’, he enquired at last, ‘that my bet is against Seagull’s boat? You want to sail with my opponents? With a man I had asked you to avoid?’
Jonathan was silent. He was really only thinking that he wanted to sail with Willie; but he wasn’t sure if he should say so.
‘How will that look to people, do you suppose?’ Totton quietly asked him.
‘I don’t know.’ Jonathan felt crestfallen. He had not thought about what other people might think. He did not know.
Henry Totton continued to stare away. He felt a sense of mortification and of rage. He could hardly bring himself to look at his only son, but finally he did. ‘I am sorry, Jonathan,’ he said softly, ‘that you do not feel any sense of loyalty to me, or to your family.’ Which, God help me, he thought, is only me now, anyway.
And suddenly Jonathan understood that he had hurt his father. And he was sorry for him. But he did not know what to do.
Then Henry Totton, overcome with the uselessness, the utter hopelessness of achieving love between himself and his son, shrugged his shoulders in despair and exclaimed: ‘Do what you like, Jonathan. Sail with whom you wish.’
And then there was a struggle inside the boy, between his love and his desire. He knew he should say he would not go, or at least offer to sail in the other ship. This was the only way to tell his father he loved him; although he was not sure, even then, that the cold merchant would believe it. But his desire was to go with Willie and the carefree mariner, and to sail the sea in their little craft with its secret speed. And as he was only ten, desire won. ‘Oh, thank you, Father,’ he said and kissed him, and ran out to tell Willie.
Willie appeared the next morning. ‘My dad says you can come,’ he reported gleefully. Henry Totton was out, so he did not hear these good tidings.
There had been a brief April shower, but now the sun was shining. The news was far too exciting to contemplate indoors, so it was not long before the two boys set off together to find amusement. Their first plan was to walk a couple of miles northwards and play in the woods at Boldre; but they had not gone a mile when, as the lane dipped down a gentle incline, their attention was caught by something on the lip of higher ground just ahead.
‘Let’s go into the rings,’ said Jonathan.
The place that had attracted them was a curious feature of the Lymington landscape; it was a small earthwork inclosure set on a low knoll from which it overlooked the nearby river. Buckland Rings it was known as – although its low, grassy walls formed a rectangle rather than a circle. Dating from Celtic times, before the Romans came, it might have been a fort to guard the river, or a cattle pen, or both; but while the borough of Lymington might well contain descendants of the folk who built it, even the memory of this earlier settlement had probably been forgotten over a thousand years before. Animals