When she had telephoned the New Forest Museum, she had not only been told she should go to this morning’s meeting, but they had offered to have someone there to meet her. ‘Don’t worry,’ the voice on the telephone had laughed. ‘We’ll find you.’
As she came to the top of the street, she saw why. The Queen’s House, the ancient royal lodge and manor, was a handsome old red-brick building. Outside a door to the side of it, a group of about twenty people had already gathered to wait. It was obvious from the way they were talking that they all knew each other. She was the only stranger. She looked around.
‘Would you be Dottie Pride?’ a voice asked behind her.
‘Yes.’ She turned. A hand was held out. A nod. A smile. Did he say his name? If so, she did not catch it.
All she knew was that she was looking at the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life. He was tall and slim, Celtic-looking. He might have been Irish. His hair fell in dark ringlets to his shoulders. With his pale, sensitive face, he looked like the pictures of the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century. His brown eyes were soft, wonderfully intelligent. He was wearing a brown leather jacket.
‘We can go in now,’ he said pleasantly. ‘The door’s opening.’
The Verderers’ Hall was a large rectangular chamber. At the far end a raised dais ran the width of the room like a magistrate’s bench, with the royal coat of arms on the bare wall behind it. Round the walls were deers’ heads and antlers and glass-fronted showcases. In a place of honour, the ancient stirrup was displayed through which dogs had to pass unless they were to be lawed. The floor was taken up with wooden benches except for the space at the front where there was a table and a witness stand. Old oak beams crossed the ceiling. Dottie, somewhat dazed, sat at the back, trying not to stare at her companion.
‘The Verderers’ Court meets on the third Monday of the month, ten months a year,’ he murmured. ‘The Official Verderer’s appointed; a few represent official bodies; the rest are elected. They have to have commoning rights to stand.’
‘This is the court set up in 1877 to replace the old medieval court?’ She’d done her homework. She wondered if it impressed him.
‘Modified once or twice, but basically, yes. Here they come.’ The verderers were filing in. He gave her quick sketches of them as they appeared. Two had published books on the New Forest. The Official Verderer was a prominent landowner. Most of them had roots in the Forest that went back centuries. There were eight present on the dais that morning. In front, in green uniforms, stood the two agisters. The Head Agister, by the witness stand, called out:
‘Oyez, oyez, oyez. All manner of persons who have any presentments to make, or matter or things to do at this Court of Verderer. Let them come forward and they shall be heard.’ She was back, Dottie thought, in the Middle Ages.
A brief report was read out. Then came the list of ponies knocked down by cars: a melancholy record at every meeting. When the meeting was opened to the floor, a succession of people came up to the witness stand to make their depositions, known as presentments. Each time, her companion would murmur a word of explanation in her ear. One man, with a broad face and fair hair, came to complain of litter from a nearby campsite. ‘That’s Reg Furzey. Smallholder.’ Another man, with a curious gnarled face that seemed to her to have been carved out of oak came to complain of a new property whose fence was encroaching upon the Forest. ‘Ron Puckle. Sells wooden garden furniture in Burley.’ The young man smiled. ‘It’s funny, when you come to think of it,’ he whispered. ‘For centuries the old Forest families spent their time making encroachments on the Forest; now they spend their lives making sure nobody else does!’ At the end of each presentment, the Official Verderer would politely rise, thank the person concerned and promise to consider their point. Some of the issues raised concerning Forestry Commission activities on local bye-laws were too technical for Dottie to follow. But the sense of the meeting was very clear: this was the ancient heart of the Forest. And the commoners with their verderers, were determined to protect its ancient character.
It was still before noon when they emerged from the court. Her next appointment was in the museum early that afternoon, and it seemed that her companion was now preparing to leave. She wondered how she could keep him with her.
‘I’ve got to go to see Grockleton’s Inclosure,’ she said. ‘Could you show me where it is?’
‘Oh. All right.’ He looked surprised. ‘I suppose so. You’ll have to walk a bit.’
‘That’ll be fine. By the way, what did you say your name was?’
‘Peter. Peter Pride.’
‘Pride?’
She had never walked that fast before. She wondered, if she stopped, whether he would just continue on his way, and didn’t dare find out. Fortunately, however, he did pause frequently to show her some lichen, or a strange beetle under a log, or some small plant which, to the trained naturalist, made this ancient area such an ecological paradise. At one point, as they came out onto some open heath, she had noticed that the holly trees on a nearby ridge had a curious profile against the sky.
‘They’re flat underneath, like mushrooms,’ she remarked.
‘That’s the browse line,’ he explained. ‘The ponies and deer eat the leaves up as far as they can reach.’ And she realized that most of the trees she could see exhibited this feature. In the distance, it gave them a magical, floating effect.
And so the lessons went on. If she couldn’t always follow the scientific information with which he constantly plied her, she could at least get a sense of the subject. And then she could watch his tall, athletic form striding ahead of her again.
He was an ecologist by training, but a Forest historian too. And knowledgeable. Impressively so. She wondered how old he was. Early twenties, twenty-five perhaps. Maybe a year or two younger than she was, but not more. She wondered if he was attached.
He was amused by her name. ‘I’m just one of them,’ he explained. ‘But there are Prides all over the Forest. Are you sure you don’t come from here?’
Her father had told her when she was a girl that she reminded him of his grandmother Dorothy, and indeed she’d been named after her. She had also discovered from him, more recently, that his grandmother had never been married. ‘She led a bit of a life, actually,’ her father had said. ‘Lived with an art professor for years. Then another one. She seemed to have a talent for attracting artists. The first one left her a lot of pictures, which turned out to be quite valuable. Who his father was, my own father was never quite sure. But he took her name anyway, which was Pride.’
‘My great-grandmother was born Dorothy Pride,’ she said. ‘But she came from London.’
He nodded quickly, but said no more on the subject.
He was curious about why she wanted to see Grockleton’s Inclosure. When she explained that her boss, John Grockleton was connected with the Forest, he seemed to think it very funny. ‘Grockleton was a Commissioner of the hated Office of Woods,’ he explained. ‘Built a railway line where several people were injured. Not a popular name here.’
‘Oh.’ She would have to think of something else to tell him.
‘Here we are,’ he said cheerfully, a few minutes later. ‘Grockleton’s Inclosure.’
The plantation, though it had been harvested several times, was much as it had been a century before. The lines of conifer seemed endless. Beneath the trees, in what little space there was, all was dark, silent, dead.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
They were a few minutes early at the New Forest Museum back in Lyndhurst, so they took a quick turn round the exhibits. Every facet of Forest life, from a recent famous snake-catcher to a detailed diagram of how to build a charcoal fire, was covered. By the time they went upstairs to the library she was longing to ask some questions.
The figure who rose from the big central table proved to be a short, white-bearded man with a kindly face and twinkling, observant blue eyes. Peter Pride had already explained tha
t, although the older man’s manner was quiet, he was the discreet force behind much of what went on in the Forest museum.
He was immediately welcoming to Dottie, introduced her to several friendly people working there, explaining that the place was also manned on a daily basis by a team of volunteers.
‘This is Mrs Totton,’ he indicated a rather distinguished-looking lady, who must have been a stunning blonde in her youth. ‘She’s on duty today.’ He gave Dottie an encouraging smile.
‘What would you like to know?’
Dottie had prepared carefully for this meeting, and it proved informative. Was the Forest facing a crisis, she asked?
‘The challenges of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are new; but they grow out of the past as you’d expect,’ the careful historian answered. ‘The reason for the protests and fires is simple enough. The commoners aren’t only having a hard time as farmers, with terrible prices for cattle, pigs and ponies. The newcomers, from outside, are paying such high prices for their pony paddocks that the price of land is being driven beyond the farmers’ reach. Above all, they feel that the modern world – Forestry Commission, local government, central government – just despises them. And yet they really are the Forest, you know.
‘Then you have the degrading of the ancient Forest environment: careless campers and tourists generally.’
‘Thousands of cars?’ she suggested.
‘Yes. But ninety per cent of people in cars never go further than fifty feet from the road. The new influx of bicycles may prove more damaging. We’ll see.’ Dottie had noticed a lone bicyclist on her way to Grockleton’s Inclosure, riding through the trees, churning up the ground as he went. She nodded.
He smiled ruefully. ‘As always, we want tourists for their income but not for the damage they do. That’s another big subject, of course.
‘But there is a third, long-term danger – the great threat of the new century, you might say.’
‘Building?’
‘Exactly. The massive increase in housing needs, the existence of a huge area scarcely touched by housing development. Some people think we should protect the Forest by making it a National Park, which would make development extremely difficult; others, especially the commoners, fear that might take away from the power of the verderers who, for the last hundred and fifty years, have been their one protection.’ He smiled again. ‘We could discuss any or all of those.’
They did, for some time. They helped her put together a list of people to whom she should talk.
‘May I add myself to that list?’ Mrs Totton enquired. A gentle nod from the kindly historian indicated to Dottie that she should accept. ‘Good,’ said the elderly lady. ‘Come to tea on Friday. Come a little early, say at four.’
‘If you really want to get the feel of the commoners,’ Peter Pride now cut in, ‘You ought to go to a pony sale. There’s one this Thursday.’
‘That sounds colourful. Perhaps we should film it.’ She glanced at Peter Pride. ‘Will you be there?’
‘Could be. Would that be helpful?’
‘Definitely,’ she said.
It was just after the meeting had broken up and she was about to leave that she paused to ask one last question.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘people often associate the New Forest with witchcraft. Do you think there’s any witchcraft here?’
The friendly historian shrugged. Mrs Totton smiled and said she didn’t think so. Peter Pride shook his head and said it was a lot of nonsense.
‘I just wondered,’ said Dottie.
The camera crew were busy. A scene like this was a challenge to be enjoyed. The past two days had been busy; but she’d been looking forward to Thursday.
The pony sales at Lord Montagu’s old private station of Beaulieu Road were always lively affairs. Leaving Lyndhurst by the park pale, they had driven south-east across the open ground towards Beaulieu for about three miles before the hump of the bridge over the railway line announced that they had reached the place. And as they came over the bridge, immediately on their left, there it was: a wooden railed sale ring with pens beside it.
The lorries and horse boxes started arriving early. Apart from the usual refreshment stalls, there were stands selling riding tack and another selling boots. But these were strictly on the sidelines. The sale ring was the sole point of the exercise and the pens were soon full of ponies.
And people. Forest people. Peter Pride was already there when they arrived and he strolled over, smiling. ‘You’ll see the real Forest today,’ he remarked. ‘These pony sales, the pony drifts – that’s when they drive the ponies off each area of the Forest and check them – and the point-to-point on Boxing Day: these are the real Forest events.’
‘And how do they feel about us being here?’ Dottie asked.
‘Suspicious.’ He shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t you be?’
They were all arriving now: countrymen in cloth caps, shaggy hair and whiskers; women in all kinds of garb to keep out spring showers; children in brightly coloured gumboots. The stands round the ring were crowded. Children were standing on the rails inspecting the ponies. Suddenly the auctioneer was at his place beside the ring, tapping his microphone, and the sale had begun.
The ponies were let into the ring in ones or twos usually. The auctioneer’s descriptions were brief, the bidding fast. The ponies wheeled as the men tapped them, waved their hands and shouted to control them. Dottie noted with interest that within the sturdy wild ponies a strain of Arabian fineness could sometimes be seen. But not all the ponies were pure Forest either. Some quite handsome small mares came into the ring too.
The camera crew were happy. They didn’t need her. There would probably be plenty of footage to use. Peter Pride at her side was now giving her a quiet running commentary.
‘That’s Toby Pride over there. That’s Philip Furzey next to him. That’s James Furzey and that’s John Pride and his cousin Eddie Pride over there. That’s Ron Puckle. You saw him at the Verderers’ Court. And Reg Furzey, remember? That’s Wilfrid Seagull, who’s a bit devious. Then that’s my cousin Mark Pride. And …’
‘Stop,’ she begged. ‘I got the message.’ What was interesting, she noticed, was that as you looked round the ring, you could see perhaps half a dozen strong physical traits coming out in all these cousins. One Pride might not necessarily resemble another, but the Furzey standing next to him was obviously related.
‘We’re like the deer,’ said Peter. ‘We move around the Forest to breed. That’s probably why we haven’t all got three eyes.’
‘Do you ever let outsiders in? I mean, really into the Forest?’
He pointed across the ring to where a very pretty girl with a Slavic face and blond hair was standing. Her ponies were just coming into the ring.
‘They came from outside.’ He indicated a fair-haired man in one of the pens with one of the Prides. ‘They’re serious about commoning. They’re part of the Forest now.’
Dottie looked at the girl. She really was stunningly beautiful. She suddenly felt a stupid rush of jealousy.
Peter meanwhile was shaking his head in sympathy while the beautiful girl opposite was looking furious. The prices for her ponies were really shockingly low.
‘Hardly enough to pay the transport and fees,’ he sighed. ‘Something’ll have to be done.’
They watched for another half an hour. Then Dottie decided she needed something to drink. As they went over towards the van selling refreshments, he turned to her thoughtfully. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I did some checking. Around 1880 there was a young woman in my family called Dorothy Pride. She went away to London.’
Like many Georgian mansions, Albion Park had converted very naturally into a hotel. The dining room was elegant, and although he had taken a little persuading, Peter Pride had finally agreed to come and join her for dinner that evening. Apart from the pleasure of seeing more of him, she was also glad of the chance to discuss some ideas. She had interviewed nearly a dozen people sinc
e Monday: local historians, Forestry Commission people, the owners of the Nova Foresta Bookshop, who knew every book ever written on the place; commoners, verderers, ordinary residents – everyone had a view of their own about the Forest. But now she had to start sifting them to see what approach she wanted to take.
They talked generally first though. She discovered they both liked similar music. He was a good chess player. That didn’t surprise her. She preferred cards, but no matter. Sport? Hikes. He smiled. ‘You have to like walking. You’re a Pride.’
They had to agree that the fact a Dorothy Pride left the Forest and another appeared in London didn’t really prove much.
‘If she’d married,’ Dottie explained, ‘we’d at least have her parents on the marriage certificate. But she didn’t.’
‘Never mind.’ He gave her a charming smile. ‘Perhaps we’ll adopt you.’ She thought that sounded rather nice.
In answer to her questions, he was helpful. Why did everyone hate the Forestry Commission?
‘Habit really. Remember, they took over from the old Office of Woods, the commoners’ natural enemy.’
Was the Forest going to be turned into a series of hideous conifer patches like Grockleton’s Inclosure?
‘No. In fact, after years of conifers, the Forestry Commission today is planting a mix of broad-leaf and conifers and taking quite a creative approach to ecology.’ He grinned. ‘Not that anybody’s perfect of course.’
But it was when she got him on to the subject of ecology in its broadest sense that his eyes shone and his mind really seemed to take wing.
‘Why is the New Forest so important ecologically?’ he asked her eagerly. ‘Why does it contain more invertebrates,’ he grinned, ‘than any other ecological site in Europe? Why do we have all these wonderful mires? Such a diversity of undamaged habitats? Such highly unusual ecotones? That’s the rich area where two habitats merge. You always get the largest number of species there.’ He gazed at her. ‘Well, why?’