The King's Chameleon Read online

  After waving their hats, the cheering crowd began to disperse, the multitude of workmen going in quest of the promised ale. A second and lighter ‘tonk-tonk-tonk’ could be heard as a dozen casks were tapped. As for the gentry, Sir Henry Johnson led the principal party into his adjacent mansion where a cold collation had been laid out. There was a brief signing of papers, which concluded the successful launch of the new East Indiaman before the Elder Brethren and other guests came in, whereupon the conversation became general and the atmosphere unreservedly convivial. In such circumstances Faulkner avoided any approach to Albemarle regarding his private affairs, though he thanked both the Duke and Duchess for their condescension in attending. It was only as Their Graces called for their coach and made to leave that Albemarle himself raised the matter. As Gooding and Johnson conducted the Duchess to her equipage, the Duke fell into step alongside Faulkner, slowing a moment as if to pass some remark about the ship-yard but dropping his voice to a confidential tone.

  ‘The King is well disposed enough towards you, Sir Christopher, but I fear it comes at a cost.’ Albemarle drew a letter from the sleeve of his gauntlet and handed it to Faulkner. ‘This is from Clarendon,’ he said. ‘I would not read it until you are without company.’

  Faulkner took the letter and slipped it into his doublet. His heart was hammering with apprehension, Albemarle’s words of comfort entirely forgotten. As Albemarle turned to follow his wife, Faulkner stammered his thanks.

  At the door of his coach Albemarle turned and smiled. ‘Good day, gentlemen.’

  ‘Fifty per centum! Great God that is monstrous!’ Gooding stood, his hand on his head, his eyes staring like a madman’s, his whole stance that of outrage. ‘Fifty per centum!’ he repeated in a low voice, subsiding into a chair in the upper room, back in Wapping. ‘Fifty per centum for the King …’ He could barely be heard now as the shock took him and he buried his face in his hands.

  Faulkner stood in silence. He had got over the shock of the demand an hour ago and had waited for Gooding’s return from the counting-house, whither he had gone directly from the ship-yard.

  Slowly, Gooding looked up. His face was ashen. ‘We are ruined,’ he said simply.

  ‘Perhaps, but I doubt it, though we shall need to make certain of our—’

  ‘’T’would be best to burn the ship at her moorings,’ Gooding went on, disregarding Faulkner’s temporization. ‘That would serve His Majesty right.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Faulkner said ruefully. He sighed and pulled himself together. ‘I scarcely know whether to blame your sister or my wife …’

  ‘Your wife, damnation take her, for I have done nothing!’ Gooding said with uncharacteristic warmth.

  ‘There is a way, Nathan, which would ease our troubles.’

  ‘Oh, and what pray is that?’

  ‘That I relinquish my interest. You and the King will share the ship while my name shall remain as joint-owner only for a cover to the King’s portion in her.’

  It was clear the idea had not occurred to the distraught Gooding and that, for himself, the prospect of Faulkner’s self-sacrifice was welcome. He made a mild protest: ‘But …’ he said, before hesitating.

  Faulkner rescued him. He was weary and, if the truth be told, indifferent to the money. Considering the changes that loomed in his life, all this seemed of little consequence.

  ‘But me no buts, Nathan, I am resolved upon the matter and will respond to Clarendon accordingly, making it certain that the King knows that he has my own share in its entirety. That is what he requires of me.’

  Such considerations were beyond Gooding’s comprehension. ‘You will have to remain as principal managing-owner,’ he said.

  ‘Until young Edmund comes home and can be made both commander and part-owner in my place.’

  Gooding thought about this solution for a moment. ‘He will not like it. Why should he manage the ship for nothing?’

  ‘He will manage it for love of my daughter and his private trade,’ Faulkner said curtly. ‘Or he may abandon his intention to marry Hannah.’ It was bluff, of course. Given his own circumstances, Faulkner had no intention of thwarting a love-match, but Gooding was assuaged.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, nodding his agreement. ‘Very well.’

  Faulkner crossed the room and placed a hand upon his shoulder. ‘What is to be done about Judith?’ he asked.

  Gooding looked up. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Do you think the Lord does?’ Faulkner asked.

  ‘I do not know that either.’

  Faulkner patted Gooding and crossed the room to stare down into the street, as though the answer lay there, to be divined in the movement of the passers-by.

  ‘When think you the Eagle will return?’ Gooding asked, after a moment’s consideration.

  ‘March or April if they have had a prosperous voyage, later if not … Perhaps not at all …’

  Gooding ignored Faulkner’s last and agreed. ‘I thought the spring.’

  ‘By which time we shall have the Duchess fitted-out and loading. Young Drinkwater will not have much of a rest if he wishes to command her on her maiden voyage.’

  ‘Maybe he will refuse …’

  ‘Not if he wishes to marry Hannah,’ Faulkner said, repeating his threat, finding the reiteration wearing rather thin. ‘That we shall arrange immediately he returns. Now, as to the ship, we have covered the costs of construction, and though the fitting-out may leave us at a disadvantage we should not stand more than we can afford. Let Edmund Drinkwater take the usual share after the first voyage.’

  ‘That will be at my expense,’ Gooding said.

  ‘I know, but the loss of five per centum is—’

  ‘Very well, you need not labour the point.’

  ‘She is not our only venture, Nathan,’ Faulkner said, his temper shortening. ‘I can do no more with regard to my wife. You shall play some small part for the blood of familial ties, and five per centum is little enough.’

  ‘You make me sound like Shylock.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Shylock the Jew, in Shakespeare’s play …’

  ‘What do I know of Shakespeare’s plays, Nathan?’

  Gooding shrugged and, for the first time since his return from Blackwall, ventured a smile. ‘I am sorry, Kit. I am all out of sorts at this news. Must I render accounts to the King?’

  ‘No, of course not, but do not think of cheating His Majesty. Keep the accounts and render His Majesty the remittance that is due: fifty per centum of the net profits of each voyage. Clarendon may send for the accounts if he wishes to; he lies somewhere between a lap-dog and a tradesman, so let him do his duty. But mind that you remit the King every farthing to which His Majesty lays claim, or both of us will swing from Tyburn’s tree.’

  ‘God help us,’ Gooding said.

  ‘The King is in constant want of money. His exchequer is empty, his tax-farmers are resisted, his expenses, especially those of his whores, are endless,’ Faulkner went on. ‘In that respect Cromwell was a better man, though he too seemed always to be short of money.’

  ‘At least he did not waste it.’

  ‘That depends upon what you think it should be spent.’

  ‘Better the Army than an harlot, surely.’

  Faulkner turned towards Gooding. ‘Well, Nathan, I am thinking of spending money on a harlot. If I have heard nothing from Judith by Christmas, you will be obliged to welcome the lady Katherine Villiers into this house, at least from time to time. You are not, of course, to ever refer to her as an harlot.’

  They heard nothing whatsoever from Judith. The only missive of any consequence that troubled the Christmas of 1661 was Clarendon’s letter informing Faulkner that the King acknowledged the transfer to His Royal Personage of his, Faulkner’s, share in the ownership of the Duchess of Albemarle. Clarendon had added a note of his own brewing: that His Majesty was contemplating the making of a number of baronetcies and that, for a further sum, Sir Christopher might ensure his tit
le descended to his heir. Faulkner did not reply.

  From time to time he waited upon Katherine, delighting in her company, though she was often called away to attend the ailing Elizabeth Stuart. Upon occasion he encountered Prince Rupert, who always greeted him with warmth. Faulkner was not fool enough to think that this constituted any real favour, for he had seen men rise in the esteem of the House of Stuart, only to fall to ugly and untimely deaths soon afterwards. Nevertheless, the son of Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, had no need to show the English sea-captain more than a measure of civility, and the Prince often went further than that. On one occasion, when they met in the hall, the one coming in and the other going out, His Highness smiled and asked after the health of Mistress Villiers, as if he, Faulkner, who was but a visitor, knew more than himself who was – at least to all intents and purposes – virtually resident in the house occupied by his elderly mother. When Faulkner had proclaimed Katherine’s health as good, His Highness had said, in an intimate tone, ‘You shall take care of that in the future, Sir Kit.’

  Faulkner had stood in the street for a moment, left with the impression that Rupert referred to some future arrangement, perhaps not too far distant, when his household would no longer require the services of a lady-in-waiting.

  Matters became clear in February when Elizabeth Stuart died. Known to all as the Winter Queen, owing to her late husband’s short reign in Prague between November 1619 and November 1620, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia gave up the ghost in her sixty-sixth year. Faulkner, close to the goings-on at Leicester House, knew Her Majesty’s death was imminent, but the note Katherine sent him on the evening of the thirteenth told him the Queen’s time had come. Despite the lateness of the hour, he went immediately to Lord Craven’s residence and found the streets already strewn with rushes. When he gained entrance he found the hall-way full of men whose age and apparel declared them to have been cavaliers, men who had ridden to war at Rupert’s side either in England or on the Continent, or both. These were men who knew defeat, who had sworn allegiance to Frederick V or to Charles I and now came to pay their respects to Charles’s sister. There were perhaps no more than fifteen or twenty of them, but they made the hall-way seem crowded, and though many thought their voices muted, the combination of their commiserations had a contrary effect.

  It took Faulkner some time to make contact with Katherine, who drew him into a ground-floor pantry to find some privacy. She wept on his shoulder as he held her, for she had come to regard the old woman as a surrogate mother and, as is so often the case with those who dominate our lives, found the end of her drudgery at the poor woman’s every whim nevertheless occasioned a deep sense of loss.

  Looking up at him through tearful eyes, Katherine shook her head. ‘I cannot come yet, my love, there is much to be done.’

  Faulkner laid a finger on her lips. ‘I know, I did not come to carry you off tonight, only to reassure you that you have only to send word. All is prepared for your reception.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘I have already explained, I do not have a wife.’

  ‘Your daughter, then? Hannah?’

  Faulkner smiled. ‘I think that she may be the first to welcome you – after myself, of course.’ She went up on tip-toes to kiss him, and he tasted her tears, wiping them away as they drew apart.

  ‘A sennight, perhaps,’ she said, ‘a fortnight at most …’

  But it was not to be. A fortnight passed and Faulkner had heard no word from Katherine who was busy with the funeral arrangements and sent him only a short note urging him to be patient, that it ‘would not, could not, now be long’. He went about his business and attended the Trinity House on the fifteenth of February when the pushy young Mr Pepys was sworn in as a Younger Brother. Thereafter Pepys somewhat beguiled the older men by his discourse so that there were those who thought his selection meet enough. Faulkner paid the self-important fellow little heed. Indeed, he remained so withdrawn that Harrison enquired if he was quite well.

  ‘Oh, I am out of sorts, Brian, ’tis no fault of yours but all mine.’

  So keyed-up with anticipation was he that when, on the last day of February, well towards midnight, a knock came at the door, he roused himself from his fireside reverie – it having become his habit of each night smoking a pipe while the last embers died out. Convinced it was Katherine, who he expected to find on his doorstep like some supplicant waif, he was actually smiling and looking down at the level on which he expected to encounter her large and lustrous eyes. Instead he found himself staring at the large buckle of a cloaked and gloved man whose face was partly obscured by a large, feathered hat.

  ‘Sir Christopher Faulkner?’

  ‘Who asks?’

  ‘I do, in the name of the Earl of Clarendon. You are to wait upon him. I have a horse saddled and ready.’ The man jerked his head over his shoulder so that a few drops of moisture fell onto Faulkner. ‘And rain is coming on.’

  ‘And what does the Earl want with me?’

  ‘He did not tell me, only that I was to bring you to him at once.’

  Faulkner swallowed and then nodded. ‘Step inside a moment. I will get boots, hat and cloak.’ Five minutes later he followed the stranger out of the house. He had taken the precaution of leaving a note for Gooding and of buckling on his sword.

  ‘You will not need the cutlery,’ the stranger remarked with a grin.

  ‘Let me be the judge of that, sir,’ Faulkner responded.

  The stranger led through the streets at a canter, shouting out that he rode ‘in the King’s name!’ when a more than usually intrepid night-watch sought to stop them and know their business being out after curfew. At a side-gate of Whitehall Palace the stranger threw himself out of the saddle and tossed his reins to a waiting ostler. Faulkner descended from his mount with more caution.

  ‘You do not sit too ill in the saddle, Sir Christopher,’ the stranger remarked. ‘I have certainly seen worse.’

  ‘I am a sea-officer,’ Faulkner replied, somewhat irked by the condescension.

  Inside the palace the stranger threw off his cloak and hat, handing them to a waiting foot-servant and indicating that Faulkner should follow suit. Then, with a brief, ‘Follow me,’ he led Faulkner down several corridors through which the latter had never previously traversed. They ascended a narrow twisting stair at the top of which the stranger paused to ensure that his charge still kept up. Then, without further ado, he knocked sharply, waited a moment and then opened a door. Faulkner followed him into a darkened room. Light from a single candelabrum threw soft reflections on the oak panelling and, once the door was closed, the hangings fell back, indicating he had been brought through a clandestine entrance.

  Faulkner stood alongside the stranger, his eyes adjusting. A man he recognized as Clarendon sat at a large table, bent over papers on which he wrote. For a moment Faulkner thought Clarendon to have been alone in the room, but a slight noise, a shift of harness, and the dull gleam of the candle-light on the accoutrements of a gentleman in half-armour sitting on the far side of the table almost made Faulkner start.

  ‘Very well, Miles, you may leave Sir Christopher with us.’

  Without a word the stranger bowed and turned, barely flicking a look at Faulkner as he disappeared the way he had come.

  ‘Pray do sit down, Sir Christopher,’ Clarendon said, without looking up.

  Easing himself into the only other chair in the room, Faulkner stared first at the bent head of the Earl and then at the face of the other man who was studying him. The two men thus measured each other without a word passing between them; the only noises in the room were the quiet creak of leather and the scratch-scratch of Clarendon’s pen.

  After what seemed an eternity, Faulkner felt the pressure of his bladder defied further procrastination. He stirred uneasily for some moments, casting about for any signs of relief, until he could restrain himself no longer. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘I have grave need of a piss-pot …’

  ‘Behind
the screen in the far corner, Sir Christopher,’ said the man across the table, his face obscured by the shadows.

  Faulkner got up and crossed the room. When he had relieved himself he emerged to find Clarendon had set his papers aside. Faulkner did not resume his seat but stood, awaiting whatever business Clarendon had summoned him for.

  ‘Pray do sit down, Sir Christopher,’ he said again, turning to the other man. ‘Sir George, since you know the room, perhaps you will perform the office.’ The other man rose and turned to a side table while Clarendon asked almost kindly, ‘A glass, Sir Christopher?’