The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [309]
But when, one afternoon after school, Nathaniel told Andrew about his new plan, even young Pride was awestruck. ‘You can’t do that,’ he whispered. ‘Not really.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … well, it’s too difficult. And anyway, I daren’t.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Nathaniel.
September also seemed to have a strange effect upon Aunt Adelaide. It came out unexpectedly one evening when she and Fanny were sitting together in the usual way.
The shadows were falling, but Aunt Adelaide had decided not to light any candles yet and, sitting in her wing chair, was only dimly visible in the penumbra as the orange glow outside the windows slowly ceased. Apart from the soft ticking of the hall clock, the house was silent and it seemed that Adelaide might have fallen asleep when instead she suddenly said: ‘It’s time you married, Fanny.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I shan’t be here for ever. I want to see you settled before I die. Have you ever thought of anyone?’
‘No.’ Fanny paused only for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’ And having no wish to pursue this conversation just now she asked in turn: ‘Did you never think of marrying, Aunt Adelaide?’
‘Perhaps.’ The old lady sighed. ‘It was too difficult. There was my mother: I did not feel I could leave her and she lived such a long time. I was over forty when she died. Then there was this house. I had to look after this, you see. I was doing it for her and for the family.’
‘For old Alice, too?’
‘Of course.’ She nodded and then, with such feeling that Fanny could not fail to be moved, said: ‘How could I not keep Albion House as they would have wished? And whomever you marry, you will do the same, won’t you, Fanny?’
‘Yes.’ How many times had she made that promise? A hundred at least. But she knew she would keep it.
‘You must never dishonour your family, you see. When I think’, she burst out, as she had a thousand times before, ‘of that cursed Penruddock and his filthy troops, and my poor, innocent grandmother, made to ride through the night half naked like that. At her age. Thieves! Villains! And Penruddock calling himself a colonel, the common blackguard.’
Fanny nodded. This was her cue to keep her aunt diverted. ‘Was Penruddock at the trial, Aunt Adelaide?’
‘Of course he was.’ Fanny expected her aunt to plunge straight into a relation of the trial in the usual way, but instead the other fell silent for long moments and Fanny was wondering if she was going to have to listen to the tick of the clock, when Adelaide spoke: ‘My grandmother was wrong. I have always thought so.’
‘Wrong?’
‘At the trial.’ She shook her head. ‘Weak, or too proud. Foolish Alice.’ She suddenly burst out, ‘You must never give up, child. Never! You must fight to the end.’ Fanny hardly knew how to reply to this when her aunt continued: ‘At the trial, you know, she scarcely said a word. She even went to sleep. She let that liar Penruddock and the others take away her name. She let that evil judge bully them all and sentence her …’
‘Perhaps there was nothing she could do.’
‘No!’ her aunt contradicted with surprising vehemence. ‘She should have protested. She should have stood up and told the judge his court was a mockery. She should have shamed them.’
‘They would have carried her from the court, and sentenced her anyway.’
‘Probably. But better to go down fighting. If ever you find yourself accused in court, Fanny, promise me you will fight.’
‘Yes, Aunt Adelaide. I don’t think’, Fanny added, ‘it’s very likely I shall be in court, though.’
But her aunt didn’t seem to be listening to this last remark. Her eyes were gazing thoughtfully at the dimming light of the window. ‘Have you ever heard your father speak of Sir George West,