The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [350]
Not Mr Grockleton’s fictitious cousin, but an aunt of his wife’s, from a rich Bristol tradesman’s family, left the modest legacy that allowed the Grockletons to retire. It was with some surprise, however, that her many friends, who even included – more or less – the Burrards, learned that Mrs Grockleton did not intend, after all, to stay in Lymington. Her academy was thriving. No less than four girls from prominent landed gentry attended some of its classes. The yearly ball she now gave for the girls had become a very pleasant fixture at which only the very best of the merchant families like the Tottons and the St Barbes were to be seen with the gentry. Mr Grockleton, who had never intercepted a single cask of brandy, had even been known, rather wryly, to drink the occasional bottle left at his door by order of Isaac Seagull, who had grown quite fond of him. Why, then, should they want to move?
The fact was, although she was too polite and kind to say it, Lymington had failed Mrs Grockleton. Indeed, so had the Forest. ‘It’s those salt pans,’ she would say sadly. For the salt pans, the little windpumps and the boiling houses were still there. True, there were one or two very agreeable houses built recently at Lymington with views of the sea. A captain and two admirals graced the place, with the promise of more to come: and admirals, though they might be fierce, were very respectable.
Yet something was missing from the town even so. Perhaps it was the French. In 1795 most of them had departed on a campaign against the revolutionaries in France. They had landed there in force, fought bravely, but in vain. The expedition had not been very well supported by the British government. Few of the brave Frenchmen returned. All that was left to remind Lymington of their sojourn there were one or two aristocratic widows, a larger number of local girls who had either fallen in love with, or married, French troops and, inevitably, a number of illegitimate children, all of whom were likely to be a charge to the parish.
No, it was not enough. With its salt pans and its smugglers, Lymington, while well enough, was never going to become a place of fashion.
But what of her own position? Wasn’t she a friend of Fanny and Wyndham Martell? And of Louisa, dear Louisa, who had married Mr Arthur West? Wasn’t she, if not a regular guest at dinner, at least on terms of friendly acquaintance with the Burrards, the Morants, even Mr Drummond of Cadland? She was and that was just the trouble. She had achieved her objective. The enemy had been vanquished. She had met them and they were mortal. It might have surprised these good people to know it, but in her own capacious mind, at least, Mrs Grockleton had moved past them. The Forest was no longer large enough to contain her.
So the Grockletons went to Bath.
And with Mr Grockleton’s retirement and departure, the coast had been clear for Puckle to return.
It was all done very quietly. Isaac Seagull saw to that. His old cottage was ready for him. So was his job. And, by some Forest magic, when he walked back into the shipyard you really might have thought that no one even knew he had been gone.
And indeed, he discovered one other, pleasant continuity upon his arrival. For the great tree he had escorted across the Forest from the Rufus stone was also there, as it were, waiting to greet him. So large and fine were its timbers that Mr Adams had been holding it at the yard until he had a ship that was worthy of it. That ship had been the mighty Swiftsure. In this way, the acorn from the magical, midwinter-leafing tree had entered and become a part of one of Nelson’s finest ships.
That had been four years ago, as work had just started on Swiftsure, and he had been working on her ever since. Her launching tomorrow, therefore, in some strange way seemed a kind of affirmation