The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [348]
She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Gentlemen, I have been offered the best lawyers to represent me, and I considered using them. They would, I have no doubt, have tried to throw doubt upon the motives, the veracity, the reliability of the good people who are my accusers. During the time before this trial I have been kept in the common gaol. I have lost my good name, my father, my aunt, even my family house. God has seen fit to take everything from me.’ She spoke with such feeling, now, that just for a moment she was unable to go on. ‘But this terrible passage of time has convinced me of one thing. I must come before you and speak nothing but the most simple truth. I throw myself entirely upon your wisdom and your mercy.’ She turned. ‘My Lord, I have nothing more to say.’
It did not take the jury long. Even the shopkeeper was ready to believe her. How did the jury find her?
‘Not guilty, My Lord.’
She was free. As she left the courtroom with her dear friends, however, Fanny felt no elation. Just outside the door, standing with a beadle, she saw the poor girl who was to be transported and paused a moment. ‘I’m sorry about what they did to you.’
‘I’m alive,’ the girl replied with a shrug. ‘Can’t be worse for me there than here.’
‘But your family …’
‘Glad to see the back of them. They never did nothing for me.’
‘I might have been joining you,’ Fanny said quietly.
‘You? A lady? Don’t make me laugh. They’d have let you off anyway.’
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said Mr Gilpin, not unkindly.
But even so, Fanny still looked back to give the girl a pitying glance.
The marriage of Miss Fanny Albion and Mr Wyndham Martell took place later that spring. There had been some uncertainty about where the celebrations should be held, but the matter was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction when Mr Gilpin offered his vicarage, where Fanny had in any case been staying. Mr Totton, as her nearest relative, gave her away, Edward was best man and Louisa the senior bridesmaid. If the Tottons had sensed a faint coolness towards them on behalf of the bride and bridegroom, there was no sign of it upon the day, when everyone congratulated Louisa on how pretty she looked and gave it as their opinion that it could not be long before she, too, found a husband.
Three days before the wedding Fanny received one unexpected guest. He came to the door of the vicarage, bearing a gift and, although a little nervous, Fanny felt she could hardly refuse to receive him, which she did in the drawing room.
Mr Isaac Seagull was looking very spruce that day, in a smart blue coat, silk stockings and a perfectly starched cravat. With a slight bow and a curious smile, he handed her the present, which was a very fine silver salver. Fanny took it and thanked him, but could not help blushing a little, for she had not seen fit to invite him to the wedding.
Guessing her thoughts, the landlord of the Angel with his cynical, chinless face gave her a smile. ‘I shouldn’t have come to the wedding if you’d asked me,’ he said very easily.
‘Oh.’
She looked out of the window at the lawn, which was still somewhat untidy after the spring rains. ‘Mr Martell knows about our relationship.’
‘Maybe. But no need to speak of it, all the same. Nothing wrong with secrets,’ remarked the man who lived by them.
‘Mr Martell is not here at present. I’m sure he would be glad to shake your hand.’
‘Well,’ said the lander with a humour that Fanny missed, ‘I dare say I shall have the pleasure of shaking his hand one of these days.’
Then he left. And it was half an hour later that Mr Gilpin, with a wry smile, found a bottle of the very best brandy outside his back door.
‘They were all there, Mr Grockleton, did you see? The Morants and the Burrards and I don’t know who else out of Dorset.’ After her own wedding day – she had enough sense to say that – Mrs Grockleton declared it had been quite