The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [378]
‘You believe, Mr Furzey, that the New Forest is an area of particular value to artists?’
‘Without a doubt. I would draw your attention to the petition that has recently been signed not only by me, but by some of the most distinguished members of the Royal Academy.’
The petition had certainly achieved massive publicity. Many of the greatest names in British art had given their opinion that the New Forest was superior even to the Lake District for its natural beauty.
‘There is a romantic wildness in the Forest, a sense of primitive nature untouched, that is without equal in southern Britain,’ he heard Furzey say. ‘The play of the light is quite extraordinary upon the ancient oaklands.’
The Colonel stared. Was it really possible Furzey could get away with this sort of florid stuff in a Select Committee of the British Parliament? Yet several of its members were nodding.
‘I should also like to mention the extraordinary resource that the Forest represents for the naturalist,’ Minimus continued. ‘You may not be aware, but the following species …’
Colonel Albion listened in a daze. Flies, insects, stag beetles, English and Latin names he did not know, Furzey gave them a list of bugs that must surely have bored these gentlemen to death. Yet again, several of them were looking impressed. And so it went on. Opinions that mystified him, terminology he only vaguely understood, Minimus was in his element. Then he came to his peroration.
‘This extraordinary area is a national treasure without equal. I say national for, although historically it was a hunting forest for the Crown, it is now a source of inspiration, of study and of recreation for the people of this island. The New Forest belongs to the people. It must be saved for them.’
Minimus had ended. The Committee took a brief pause. People started to file out. As Colonel Albion sat there, hardly knowing what to think, Mr Eyre came smilingly towards him.
‘That was strong stuff,’ he remarked. ‘Just what was needed, don’t you agree?’
Albion was still in a daze when his wife took him up to Regent Street at the end of the day. Mr Eyre and Lord Henry had arranged a reception there and, though the place they had chosen was hardly one where he would feel comfortable, the Colonel had felt it would seem like discourtesy not to attend.
There was no doubt that the exhibition of New Forest art that Mr Eyre had organized in the Regent Street gallery had been a very clever idea, and it had attracted favourable attention in the newspapers. Paintings of animals and landscapes were always liked in Britain, and since Queen Victoria had made the wild scenery of Scotland so fashionable, almost any landscape containing heather or a stag was sure of a ready market.
With as good a grace as he could muster, therefore, the Colonel let himself be led inside.
There was already a throng of people in the gallery when they entered. Mercifully, as far as Albion could see, most of them did not seem to be artists, but looked like respectable people. It was not long before he found himself having a perfectly reasonable conversation with a retired admiral from Lymington with whom, the previous year, he had shot a large number of duck. And he was feeling considerably cheered when his eye happened to be caught by a small painting of a sunset, seen from Castle Malwood, looking down over Minstead church.
‘That’s a lovely thing,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve got one just like it. Don’t know the artist.’
The admiral didn’t either. But just then they were joined by Lord Henry who, glancing at the picture, gave Albion a puzzled look.
‘My dear friend,’ he said genially, ‘you are right to like it because it is a very good painting indeed, by a very fine artist. It is by Minimus Furzey.’
The New Forest Act of 1877 was to settle the shape of the New Forest for generations to come. The