The King's Chameleon Read online

  She was, Faulkner concluded, so deeply implicated that escape out of the country was her only option. And where else to go, but The Seven United Provinces of The Netherlands? Just as they had been when the Royalists were in exile, the Dutch were prepared to play host to the men whose lives were endangered by Charles II’s Restoration. Common gossip told of several of the Regicides threatened by the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion being in The United Provinces, and Faulkner had heard that Sir George Downing, His Majesty’s envoy to the States General at The Hague, had caused a near-scandal when he botched an attempt to seize Edward Dendy in Rotterdam. Dendy was one of those exempt from the amnesty granted to most supporters of the Parliament during the late war – the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. It was Downing’s conspicuous bungling that confirmed Faulkner in his decision not to make a landing from the Hawk. Given the nervous state of affairs between the two countries, he was reluctantly obliged to abandon his chase and concede defeat.

  Unhappily, Faulkner ordered Toshack set the Hawk’s head to the west, waving aside the old man’s pleadings to allow him to lie off the coast for another few days.

  ‘I thank you, but that will serve no useful purpose. You may land me at Harwich and return to the Thames, where I shall see you and your men well-paid for your diligence.’

  At Harwich, Toshack took in much-needed victuals while Faulkner, disembarking with Hargreaves, took a coach for London. He was in a lather, and eager to be at Deptford on the tenth, when the Brethren of Trinity House elected Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich, as their new Master. As they assembled for dinner on that occasion, Faulkner made a point of speaking with Albemarle who, in standing down after the customary year in office, retained his easy manner and spoke warmly to Faulkner. ‘How is your new ship, Sir Christopher?’

  ‘I have not seen her for a week or two, Your Grace,’ Faulkner confessed, ‘though my partner will have been a model of attentiveness. When I saw her last she was coming on splendidly. With your permission, she will be launched as the “Duchess of Albemarle” and I shall of course invite Your Grace and Her Ladyship to the rout.’

  Albemarle smiled. ‘My thanks. Let us hope you can profit from your investment before the Dutch come interfering in our affairs – or we in theirs, as I fear must happen by-and-by.’

  Faulkner nodded agreement, then lowered his voice. ‘Your Grace, may I have a confidential word with you?’

  ‘Now, or shall I offer you a place in my barge after we have eaten?’

  ‘As Your Lordship pleases.’

  ‘I think,’ said Albemarle gesturing to the noise of loud chatter that surrounded them, ‘that my barge would be better.’

  With six oarsmen pulling upstream, Faulkner sat under the canopy of Albemarle’s hired barge and explained his situation. When he had laid his case before Albemarle, the Duke rubbed his chin with an ominous rasp.

  ‘It is a difficulty for you, I can see, but if they are both abroad and the King knows that you gave them no warning to escape …’

  ‘That is my anxiety, Your Grace. I do not know that he does know that. The errand he sent me on to Oxford delayed my finding out the place where my son was hiding. I did not for a moment think that my wife had any part in any of this. As far as I knew she believed, as I did, that the boy was outward-bound for the East Indies. In fact it seems it was quite to the contrary.’

  ‘I understand. You will be under some measure of suspicion. However, I can explain to His Majesty if the opportunity arises.’

  ‘I would be most grateful. Please assure His Majesty of my deepest sentiments of loyalty.’

  ‘I will do what I may.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Grace.’

  It was only then that he felt able to think of Katherine.

  During the succeeding weeks, Faulkner attempted to dispel his anxiety by throwing himself whole-heartedly into the final work necessary to complete the Duchess of Albemarle for her launching. While it was possible to divert his mind during daylight hours, it was more difficult at night. He slept badly and became accustomed to sitting in the parlour until late with a pipe of tobacco and a glass. Sometimes Hannah would sit with him and, in his preoccupation, he neglected her. One evening, while the two of them sat quietly together, she laid her needle by with a sigh and, in a low voice, asked, ‘Father, do you think he will come back?’

  Faulkner stirred himself and looked at his daughter, taking the long stem of his pipe from his mouth to say: ‘Henry? I hope that if he does he doesn’t ask me to seek a pardon of the King.’

  ‘No,’ she answered, ‘not Henry …’

  Faulkner frowned. ‘Not Henry? Who then?’

  ‘Why Edmund, Father,’ she said, looking at him and his blank, uncomprehending face. ‘Edmund Drinkwater.’

  The reproach in her eyes smote him like a blow, and he set his pipe and glass down, rose and crossed the room to stand beside her and place his hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, my poor girl, I have been so misanthropic, have I not? So caught up with mine own that I have forgot my child’s woes. I am so sorry, Hannah, my dear, but the defection of your mother and brother places me – and, I regret to say, you – in a near intolerable position.’

  ‘I know,’ she said with another sigh. ‘Many people speak of it, though they say it is not your fault.’

  ‘They do?’ Faulkner was astonished.

  ‘These matters cannot be kept quiet, Father.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ He paused and smiled down at her, patting her reassuringly. ‘I shall see what may be done, Hannah. As for your Edmund, he has as fair a chance of returning as any other sea-officer making an eastern voyage. This is not his first and he is not a fool.’

  ‘I pray you are right, Father.’

  Squeezing her shoulder gently he was about to return to his chair when Hannah said, ‘There is one further matter, Father …’

  ‘And what is that, my dearest?’

  She hesitated for a moment before picking up her needle and staring down at her work. ‘Uncle Nathan has twice mentioned …’ she began before faltering and Faulkner guessed what was coming.

  ‘Had twice mentioned the entanglement of a certain lady, is that what you were about to say?’ He eased himself down into his chair with a sigh as she nodded. ‘You well know there is a lady, Hannah, a lady who came between your mother and myself many years ago. It is also true that the lady is, even now, in London, and that I have spoken several times with her since I returned from my fruitless pursuit of your mother and brother in the Hawk.’ He looked at his daughter as she bent diligently over her needle-work, aware that she listened intently to every word he said. ‘She is,’ he went on, ‘Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen of Bohemia, who is old and unwell and demanding, but I am not about to run off with her like some callow youth.’

  ‘Do you love her?’ Hannah suddenly asked, looking him straight in the face.

  Faulkner sighed again and matched his daughter’s gaze. ‘Do you love your Edmund?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  Faulkner nodded. ‘Then you will understand that I have loved this lady since the first I saw her many years ago. Then there was no prospect of our making a match, for she was high-born and I, I was scarcely worthy of scraping the mud from her shoes, but she loved me, and in the turmoil of the war I—’

  ‘I do not understand you, Father,’ Hannah interrupted as he faltered in making his confession. ‘But I would not have you unhappy.’

  He smiled, his eyes filling with tears, which he dashed away with his hand. ‘Life is a difficult business, Hannah, as you are just discovering as you await news of Edmund.’

  A profound silence fell between them. Faulkner sensed Hannah wished to say more, but felt constrained; such a conversation with her father was impossible. As for Faulkner, he too wished to explain, to put Hannah in possession of his own experience but, for all his powers of expression, nurtured in his youth by his old mentor, Sir Henry Mainwaring, he found it impossible. Mainwaring’s tutelage had not extended to matters
of the heart, nor of the complexities of love and lust. Sadly, Faulkner relinquished the imperfect formation of some such explanation and let his mind drift towards the pleasant contemplation of the last stolen afternoon he had spent in Katherine’s company at Leicester House while her mistress had dozed. They too had sat like this in companionable silence, as though they had in fact been married for all the years they had been apart. He thought of what Katherine had said to him as he left her after his first visit following his return from the Dutch coast. ‘We have waited a long time, my darling; we can – we must – wait a little longer.’

  He had been repeating that reassuring phrase over and over in his mind as though it was a talisman to guard him against the malice of his distant, estranged wife and the hostile disposition of the King himself. Looking across the parlour at Hannah, bent again over her needle-work, he shivered with apprehension.

  One of Faulkner’s occasional duties as an Elder Brother of the Trinity House was to inspect the Corporation’s Collector of Dues. This individual worked close to the King’s Customs Officers, levying the fees ships paid on any ballast they loaded from the Trinity lighters that supplied it. It was in attending this tax-farmer one morning that he noticed the entry of the Mary, and the fact that John Lamont, Master, had cleared his bilander inwards in the Port of London. Calling for a boat, Faulkner was soon being pulled downstream in search of the Scotsman. He discovered the Mary lying off Rotherhithe and clambered aboard, addressing her mate and asking for the vessel’s master.

  ‘He’s below,’ the man replied, pointing to the companionway.

  Faulkner found Lamont sitting in an easy chair talking to another, a gentleman by his dress and another Scotsman by his accent. Lamont rose at the intrusion, but did not seem incommoded by Faulkner’s unannounced arrival, nor did he seem moved to concede any priority to his new guest. Instead he introduced the gentleman as a passenger by the name of McNaughten, a merchant from Leith, and invited Faulkner to a glass of Genever.

  Faulkner declined the offer. ‘I come upon a personal matter, Captain Lamont, touching your late passengers embarked here and carried to Flushing, or thereabouts.’ He paused as the Scotsman furrowed his brow in pretended recollection.

  ‘That would be the Mistress Faulkner and her boy? A fine young man, Captain Faulkner.’

  ‘That would indeed, Captain Lamont.’ Faulkner looked at McNaughten, who appeared to relish this encounter and may well have been regaled by an account of the scandal during his voyage. ‘You will please excuse the directness of my approach, Mr McNaughten, but you will doubtless understand that there are few secrets along the river these days and Captain Lamont is a man, as I know to my cost, who may be relied upon to unravel another’s affairs to his advantage.’

  ‘Whisht, Captain, that is a trifle harsh,’ put in Lamont. ‘The lady appealed to my guid nature, that is all, and since she owned half the Mary, who was I to refuse her?’ He drew upon his glass and added, ‘She seemed somewhat anxious to depart from your company.’

  ‘I presume that you are yourself now entered into a state of matrimony, Captain?’

  ‘Indeed I am, thank ye, Captain, and uncommon happy in the union.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. I hope that you have chosen wisely in your wife. Now tell me, sir, exactly where you landed mine and what news you have of her. Any intelligence will perhaps put my mind at rest.’

  ‘Well, Captain Faulkner, you being an Elder Brother of the Trinity House could see to it that the Mary, should she need to take in a little ballast—’

  ‘Damn you, Lamont! I’ll have no truck with that sort of talk! If you want to clear outwards without let or hindrance you’ll tell me what I wish to know, otherwise I’ll have you mulcted for burning lights after dark, carrying powder above Gravesend and anything else I can find to frustrate you.’

  ‘Ach, Mister McNaughten, these English are a touchy lot, to be sure,’ Lamont said mildly. He turned to Faulkner with a disarming smile. ‘Aye, Captain Faulkner, we landed your wife and that fine boy of yours at Flushing. I carried her at no fee, for she owns half the vessel, and the boy too out of charity. She left me no message, no, nor letter for you, otherwise you would have heard from me long since. That is all I can tell you, alas.’

  Faulkner stared at Lamont and decided he was telling the truth. With a curt word of thanks he rose and went on deck. Half an hour later he was ashore at his counting-house.

  The Launching

  August 1661–February 1662

  The summer passed without news from the Low Countries or summons from the King. After the equinox Faulkner’s mind eased, though anxiety was apt to keep him awake at nights, following the ineluctable promptings of his bladder. His empty bed irked him, and he longed for Katherine’s company but, as they had agreed, they must wait out events, at least for a decent interval. True, the restored King’s conduct had a loosening effect upon the morals of his subjects. There were those who pleaded a reaction against the strictures of the Puritan Commonwealth, others pointed pious fingers at the growing revelations of His Majesty’s riotous private life, while most relapsed into the easier ways of their fathers. In such an atmosphere few would have commented much upon Captain Sir Christopher Faulkner taking a ‘distant kinswoman’ into his household. If she were to grace his bed, those interested enough to ponder on the matter would probably conclude an issue was unlikely, given the age of the bed-fellows, but neither Faulkner nor Katherine were anxious to draw attention to their love. Katherine, busy about her duties to the ailing ‘Winter Queen’ of Bohemia, was bound to her mistress, while Faulkner remained worried, uncertain of the King’s attitude to him.

  He was not left long in doubt. Towards the end of September, preparations were made for the launching of the Duchess of Albemarle from Sir Henry Johnson’s Blackwall ship-yard. Somewhat unwilling to make much of the occasion, Faulkner’s obligation to Albemarle compelled him to make the most of it. Exchanges of letters between Albemarle and Faulkner resulted in the presence of the Duchess herself to grace the occasion. So too did the greater part of Faulkner’s fellow Brethren of the Trinity House, along with a number of hangers-on, including a pushy young man, recently appointed to some post at the Navy Board who introduced himself as ‘Mister Pepys’ and another, well-regarded at the Trinity House, named John Evelyn. Aware that Pepys was a creature of the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York and brother of the King, Faulkner conjectured that he was a spy. Certainly, he drank excessively, which did nothing to enhance him in the watching Faulkner’s eyes.

  Had there been no clouds on Faulkner’s personal horizon that day, it would have been a joyous occasion. Nathan Gooding seemed in sparkling form, which his partner attributed to a desire to redeem himself, while Hannah did duty as the lady of the house, looking radiant enough to attract the attention of young Pepys. Faulkner noticed with satisfaction that she saw him off in fine style. His Grace the Duke of Albemarle arrived in his coach and handed out his Duchess, to introduce her to Faulkner, Gooding and Johnson. She was a large, plain and undistinguished lady named Anne, of whom Albemarle was demonstrably fond, for they had been married when he was plain Mr Monck and neither of their heads had been turned by Honest George’s spectacular rise in the world.

  The principal party then made their way to the slipway, where a small wooden platform had been raised alongside the ship’s bow. It was a dull, autumnal day and the great hull seemed to tower into the grey sky, massive and ponderous. Nevertheless, despite the overcast and lack of sunshine, the fabric of the new ship seemed to gleam, her pale, payed under-body rising to a coating of thick, still slightly sticky varnish above her waterline as her topside turned inwards in a bold tumble-home. Those watching from wherries in the river could observe her fine stern, with its double rows of glazed windows, its garlands of carved acanthus leaves and her quarterdeck gun-ports surrounded by carved wreaths of entwined laurel, man-of-war fashion. Above the principal party that gathered around Albemarle and his Duchess, the gilding and bright-wor
k of her round bow rose to the upwards sweep of her knightheads and figurehead, an ample representation of a grand lady which, when pointed out to her, made the Duchess chuckle.

  ‘Heavens, George,’ Hannah heard her whisper to her smiling husband, ‘now I know I’m a Duchess.’

  It was not the image of Katherine Villiers, as Faulkner had imagined in his dream, but in staring up at it, he made a private resolution to himself. If he untangled himself from the mess in which he was presently enmeshed and matters fell out as he desired, he promised himself that his next East Indiaman – and he was optimistic in that moment of hope to think that there would be another such ship – would be named after Katherine. He cast the thought aside; he had no time for such day-dreaming.

  Faulkner looked round. Drawn round the platform the Elder Brethren were gathered in their perukes and hats. Harrison gave him a cheerful wave, made a gesture of admiration towards the looming hull on the slip-way and mouthed a compliment. Faulkner’s eyes roved out over the assembled workmen and those of their families free to attend the ceremony. He could see several of the men, mostly ship-wrights, with whom he had become familiar in the last months as the Duchess of Albemarle neared completion. Looking up he saw the excited mug of Charlie Hargreaves and the serious be-whiskered face of old Toshack whose duty it was to see the new ship brought to an anchor in mid-stream and then work her down to the sheer-hulk where her lower masts would be stepped prior to moving her to the moorings for her fitting-out.

  Looking round the principal party, who had now taken up their appropriate stations at Johnson’s behest, Faulkner raised his hat and shouted, several times, until he had achieved some sort of quiet. Then he made his bow to the Duchess of Albemarle. Her Ladyship fulfilled the customary office of pouring a libation of wine down the huge stem of the ship named in her honour and wished the vessel and her people success and long life. At this point Faulkner made a signal and the master ship-wright passed the word to the men stationed along the slipway. In the lull following the Duchess’s short bidding, there was a sudden ‘tonk-tonk-tonk’ as a score of mauls were swung vigorously at wedges, knocking them clear. For a moment everyone present held their breath, and then the great hull began to move along the freshly greased slipway, slowly and majestically gathering momentum as her immense mass was drawn towards the river by gravity. In the river a few wherries were frantically rowed clear as, with a sudden roar of approbation from the crowd, and a sparking grinding, the drag-weights which were tethered to the new ship to prevent her carrying herself right across the river began to follow her down the ways. The stern drove into the water, creating a wave that dwarfed the wavelets chopped up by the south-westerly breeze and higher than the freeboard of the watching boats; for a moment the ship was poised between the upthrust of the Thames and her stabilizing cradle. Then her bow dropped as she became fully buoyant, the cradle fell away, and she slowed as the weights to which she was tethered dragged her to a standstill. A moment or two later she swung round to the tide as Toshack did his duty. At her bow and stern flew the jack and ensign of Great Britain and from her empty mast emplacements tall staffs bore the flags of the Trinity House, the East India Company and, amidships, the standard of the Duke of Albemarle. At that moment, as if a benediction upon the enterprise, the sun made a fleeting appearance, shining on the gleaming bright-work and gilding, on the brilliant heraldry of the silk banners as they lifted to the sharp breeze, and on the new ship as she rode to her anchor in the tideway.