On their way they passed Lord Middleton’s encampment and, in paying their respects, encountered John Evelyn in conversation with the general. Evelyn seemed keen to know what Faulkner had seen of the Dutch attack and, learning that they were proposing shortly to return to London, advised them that the roads were bad.
‘The country is in an uproar, having heard that the Dutch have landed, and there are those among the soldiery busy robbing and looting. As for the populace, many run like rats in fear of their lives, abandoning their property and clutching their chattels. They achieve little thereby except to create disorder to add to our disgrace.’
‘’Tis my Lord Douglas’s men who do the looting,’ Edmund remarked sardonically. ‘I saw some of their handiwork. I have little doubt but it is they who put the word about that it is others.’
Having passed the time of day and commiserated on the state of affairs, the two continued their ride to the fort – or what remained of it. The Dutch had done an efficient job in its demolition. Its embrasures had been destroyed, its guns tipped into the fosse and those parts of the structure made of wood burned. Faulkner thought of his madcap charge with a sense of shame; he thought better of regaling Edmund with a narration. Instead he picked at his scabby ear and began a half-hearted hunt for his lost glass. Finally, he gave up.
Edmund had walked his horse down to the shore to investigate the shipping lying in the distant channel. Reluctantly, Faulkner followed. By the time he drew rein alongside Edmund, the younger man had scanned the horizon and turned to his father-in-law.
‘Look!’ Edmund exclaimed, sweeping his right hand from left to right. ‘As far as one can see the Dutch fleet lies at anchor on our doorstep as though it were their own – which I suppose it is for the time being.’ From the faint speck of the buoy of the Nore, eastwards as far as the keen eye could see, lay a long line of men-of-war. Every one of them within sight bore the red, white and blue colours of the Seven United Provinces. ‘You did not find your glass?’
‘No.’ The two men sat for a moment side by side. ‘De Witt has had his revenge,’ said Faulkner resignedly. ‘Revenge for Downing’s outrage on his country’s integrity, revenge for de Ruyter’s late defeat and revenge for Holmes’s Bonfire. We are laid low, Edmund, as low as it is possible to be, and I recall how low we were in King James’s day, aye, and that of the first Charles. I was myself adopted, brought up and nurtured to help end that state of affairs, and now look at us: back where we began. It is as though my life has meant nothing.’ He paused, aware that Edmund was looking at him, ignorant of what he spoke. He smiled. ‘I will tell you some time, Edmund, of old Sir Henry Mainwaring, of the late King presenting me with a long-glass, of meeting and losing Katherine, of marrying Hannah’s mother, of raiding the coast of Morocco to root out the Sallee pirates from their lair, of teaching the present King how to sail, of civil war and exile and much more, but now –’ he tugged his horse’s head round a second time – ‘now we shall go home.’
If Faulkner thought that he might be allowed a life of retired ease, he was mistaken. Although a peace treaty was signed at Breda in July, there was a growing appetite for revenge upon the Dutch. It was whispered that there were secret negotiations in train between King Charles and King Louis of France, the latter eager to extend his kingdom’s borders to the Rhine and over-run Flanders.
In the immediate wake of the Dutch raid the Duke of York, in his capacity as Lord High Admiral, ordered Faulkner to join other senior commanders as a commissioner to investigate the best way to restore the Royal Navy to its former power. Only one fleet flag-ship, the Royal Sovereign, had escaped destruction through being at Portsmouth, but it was the lack of money that doomed the commissioners’ recommendations from being carried out in the months that followed. There were also political dimensions: a Committee of Miscarriages set up by the House of Commons, in an unholy union of Royalist and Republican members, sought to discover where the two and a half million pounds sterling voted by Parliament for the war had gone.
This in turn engendered a seeking of scapegoats, though the King’s mistresses were exempt. Among those who lost their posts in the wake of de Ruyter’s final retreat from his anchorage along the coast of north Kent was Peter Pett at Chatham. Dismissed with obloquy, his dilatoriness was unjustly held to have been the chief cause of the Dutch success. Clarendon also fell from grace, dismissed as the architect of disaster and subject to impeachment. Albemarle too faded from public notice from this time, age and infirmity taking their toll.
Although Sir George Downing, sometime earlier recalled from The Hague and appointed Secretary to the Treasury, skilfully reconstructed the King’s finances, they waited upon time for the effect of taxation to pay its dividend. Nevertheless, the Admiralty and the Navy Board underwent reform, driven by the Duke of York and largely put into effect by that same Samuel Pepys who Faulkner had first noted at the Trinity House as a pushy young fellow. Meanwhile poor Evelyn toiled to ease the burden of the sick, the wounded and the unpaid seamen, supported as far as they were able, by the Trinity Brethren.
Against this background the optimism in which Faulkner and his fellow commissioners first met withered quickly and had little effect. The commission was quietly wound up and, in the end, Faulkner’s contribution to the rebuilding of the King’s navy was to answer some questions put to him at Trinity House by Master Pepys. This grew into a modest correspondence in which Faulkner gave of his experience, remarking to Katherine that he considered Master Pepys would reserve to himself any credit accruing to his suggestions.
‘That is the way of the world,’ Katherine replied, smiling. ‘The young push out the old when they can, thinking the old know little and what little they know is made better use of by the young.’
Faulkner chuckled, reaching for his spectacles. ‘He’ll learn, and one day likely suffer the indignities of old age.’ Faulkner rubbed his eyes before clamping the spectacles on the bridge of his nose. ‘Now I have Edmund’s report on the new ship to read.’
‘Oh, and a missive came for you today from Bethlem Hospital.’ Katherine rose and found the letter, passing it to him. He broke the seal and read it, Katherine watching him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It is to inform me that since it is not the practice of the Hospital to retain patients for longer than necessary Nathan Gooding is to be released, and I am invited to collect him.’ He laid the letter down, removed his spectacles and stared at Katherine.
‘What shall you do?’
‘I have no idea. I must speak with Judith.’
‘You may surely leave that until tomorrow.’
It took a vigorous knocking to summon Molly to the street door of the house in Wapping. She led him upstairs to where Judith lay a-bed; the air in the room was stale, the bed-sheets filthy and Molly’s air was proprietorial. Judith looked dreadful; her eyes were closed, her face was pale and waxy, her hair lank and undressed, her nightgown stained. A tray of half-eaten food lay neglected upon a bedside table and the chamber stank of fetid air.
‘She’s a-fevered,’ Molly offered, by way of explanation.
Without a word Faulkner crossed the room and laid his hand on Judith’s forehead. It was cold to the touch, and he noticed her respiration was weak. Bent over her he looked down the length of the bed at Molly, standing at its foot.
‘There’s no fever,’ he said shortly and then noticed an odd protuberance under the bed clothes. Lifting the bedding he saw her swollen belly and gently replaced the sheets and blankets. ‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked Molly. She shook her head.
‘I do, Husband.’
He turned his head and stared into Judith’s eyes. They were yellow, and her breath stank.
‘So, you have come back to me. Is your harlot taken by the French pox?’ Her voice was weak, but her thoughts were lucid.
He said nothing, unable to do so, and waved Molly from the room. She flounced out, pouting.
‘I knew nothing of this,’ he said, ‘or I should have come sooner.’
Judith stared at him. ‘Do you have a physician?’
‘No … There is no point, Husband,’ she said with difficulty. ‘You will be rid of me soon, and I will have passed to a better place.’
‘I will have a physician come,’ he said suddenly, straightening up, ‘and I will see to it that you have better care than that slut gives you.’
‘No!’ He felt her hand on his wrist; it was like a claw. ‘She is the only one to remain loyal to me. She has brought me what I wanted, and that is enough.’
‘And what was that?’
‘An attorney. I have dictated and signed a testament in defiance of your rights and wish that some portion is left to her. The rest, Husband, is yours as the Law and God require.’
He bit off an unkind remark that he cared not a fig for her money, at the same time realizing that he could not concern her for her brother. ‘Is there nothing I can do?’
‘Nothing, unless it is to see my remains properly interred.’
‘Of course.’
‘And that the loyal Molly receives her due.’
‘Yes.’
She turned her head away from him but, as he rose to leave the room, she asked, ‘Where is my brother?’ She was frowning and seemed puzzled, uncertain, as though her grasp of reality was slipping away from her.
‘He is in a safe place.’
‘He has bewitched me, you know.’ She made a pathetic gesture towards her swollen belly. ‘You saw what he had done.’
Faulkner stood a moment. He had nothing to say, but as he watched, she closed her eyes. He waited a moment then said, half to himself, ‘Goodbye, Julia.’ It was only after he had sent Molly back into his wife’s chamber that he recollected he had used the name she had been Christened with. For a moment he thought of the perversion induced by Puritan radicalism; of the invocation of God, the importance of outward forms and that troubling business of witchcraft. Not, he thought to himself as he left the house, that witchery did not trouble people other than Puritans. Had not the King’s grand-father, King James, written a book on the subject? Still, aside from the irony that Judith considered her brother the satanic agent of her disease, her condition was appalling.
He returned to Katherine a much sobered man. Explaining to her, and later to Hannah and Edmund, they all agreed that some amelioration of Judith’s plight was indispensable. The details they left until the morning, but as they got into bed that night Katherine offered a solution.
‘My dearest, I think we should remove ourselves from this house, where we are an encumbrance, and return to Wapping. We could nurse Judith until her time comes, which, if you are correct, will not be long. Moreover, there we may also comfortably accommodate her brother. We have the means to hire help, and the house is large enough.’
Faulkner looked at Katherine. ‘You would do that?’
‘If I did not do it alone – yes.’
Faulkner feared Judith’s reaction when she encountered Katherine. Molly’s insolence was quickly stifled by Faulkner threatening her loss of immediate employment. She was bright enough to see where her future lay and, after a week of peevishness, she resumed her previous station without protest. Whether or not she was aware that her mistress had made provision for her, Faulkner neither knew nor cared. As long as his wife lived, he was determined that she should not lie in filth and squalor.
Katherine worked her charm and, as a result, Molly’s appearance was considerably improved. At the end of a fortnight, with the efforts of Molly and Katherine, with some supplementary assistance from Faulkner and two men brought in from the wharf to attend to some repairs, order and cleanliness had been re-established.
Nathan was released from Bethlem Hospital a month after they returned to Wapping. He too was much altered. Thin and withdrawn, the learned doctors declared him harmless, suggesting that he be given some book-work to attend to, declaring him to be ‘an excellent clerk’. Gooding had smiled at the condescension and nodded his head slowly. Before they left the hospital, Faulkner looked Nathan straight in the face and asked if he was recognized.
‘Of course, Kit.’ Gooding’s voice was low, measured, reasonable.
‘And could you live in harmony with your sister?’ Gooding nodded. ‘She is very ill, and not expected to live long.’
‘If she could live with me,’ he said, apparently untroubled with the news of her disease.
When led into Judith’s chamber, Gooding took one look and sank to his knees beside his sister’s bed, putting his head in his hands. Katherine, who had been tending the invalid, motioned Faulkner to withdraw. Leaving brother and sister together, Katherine and Faulkner stood on the landing outside, half expecting some outburst from Judith.
Aware of his poor hearing, Faulkner asked: ‘Can you hear anything?’
Katherine put a finger to her lips, bending towards the door, which stood ajar. ‘They are talking,’ she said after a moment in a low voice, ‘or praying. I cannot quite determine.’
After several minutes Katherine knocked and, leaving Faulkner on the landing, went in.
‘You would never have known anything but a state of perfect amity had existed between them for their entire lives,’ she advised him later. ‘He was reading The Bible to her, or had been when I entered.’
‘Does one presume that this state of mind is set, or do I have to lock him up at High Water, Full and Change?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean when the moon is full and new.’
‘Oh!’ Katherine shrugged. ‘But I suppose we must watch him.’
They never discovered what influence the moon might have upon Gooding, for Judith died of her cancer eight days later and Nathan Gooding conducted her to her grave in his sober black, a Puritan gentleman to the last, and the chief mourner of his sister Julia, latterly known as Judith.
‘I am widowed,’ Faulkner remarked that night to Katherine, ‘and free to marry again, my darling Kate.’
‘After a proper interval, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps? What mean you by perhaps? Is the matter not a certainty? We have braved scandal …’
Katherine pulled a face. ‘Braved scandal? Come, sir, the times do not care for a scandal such as ours, not as they might have done in the recent past. Whatever we decide we must wait. Some propriety is called for.’
‘I suppose so,’ Faulkner grunted in response.
‘Do you not feel grief for her? She bore you children; you must have loved her once.’
‘Once, perhaps, and yes, she bore me children. I feel more remorse than grief, but life is such a trifling thing that I cannot pretend to more than that.’
Katherine frowned. ‘A trifling thing?’
‘Not to each individual,’ he said, thinking of those slaughtered about him in action. ‘But I have seen it too oft snuffed out like a candle to hold it as anything more than a small thing. Something of the instant. D’you see?’
She nodded, thinking of the vicissitudes of their two, twin, lives, of the separations and the entanglements, and of Judith’s part. ‘For you and I, knowing death and battle and exile, perhaps that is so. For Judith and her brother there were expectations. They lived their lives …’ She sought for a metaphor, and he came to her aid.
‘Less close to the abyss?’ She nodded and smiled at him. The thought contented them as they settled in bed. As they lay in each other’s arms on the verge of sleep he whispered, ‘Nevertheless, you shall be Lady Faulkner.’
The philosophical conclusions arrived at by Faulkner and Katherine were rudely shaken the following morning when Gooding came downstairs for breakfast. Faulkner was on the point of leaving the house, intending to visit Johnson at Blackwall before going aboard the Hawk, when Gooding made a remark that caused Katherine to place a restraining hand on Faulkner’s arm. Gooding’s voice had been low, and Katherine rightly guessed that Faulkner had not heard what he had said, and Faulkner turned, looking first at Katherine and then, seeing the look on her face, at Gooding.
There was nothing
immediately remarkable about Gooding. They had become accustomed to his pale face, his withdrawn, almost other-worldly appearance. He seemed to move through life as if untroubled by his surroundings, a man who would wander out in the pouring rain without taking regard for the deluge. He had that vacant look about him now, and Faulkner was puzzled as to why Katherine called his attention to him.
‘What did you say, Nathan?’ she asked quietly.
‘I said, I had defeated Satan and prayed triumphantly for my sister’s death.’
Faulkner frowned. It was clear that Katherine had divined something more serious in Gooding’s revelation, but he felt imbued with a faint sense of exasperation and was eager to be about his business. Faulkner sighed. He did not share Katherine’s concern. ‘I’m sure you did, Nathan,’ he said soothingly. ‘Judith was a very sick woman and we all wished that her end was swift and with as little pain as God in his mercy …’ Faulkner’s voice tailed off, aware that his words were deeply troubling to Gooding, whose eyes had suddenly taken on a wild look. He began to make defiant, jerky motions with his hands.
‘What do you mean, Nathan?’ Katherine asked, stepping forward and catching one gesticulating hand.
‘I tricked Satan,’ he said, his tone insistent, each word enunciated emphatically. ‘I,’ he repeated, ‘deceived Beelzebub … the Devil …’ His voice rose. ‘Now do you understand?’
‘You prayed for a swift end?’ Faulkner queried.
‘No! I prayed that she should die!’
Katherine understood. Keeping her eyes on Gooding, she explained: ‘He means, I think, that Judith’s affliction, her illness, not the coming of her end, was entirely due to his prayers and supplications.’
Gooding was nodding. ‘Yes. Yes … my supplications … I prayed constantly when I was in … in that place …’ His reference to Bethlem Hospital seemed to calm him. He closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them again he had resumed his detached air. Looking from Katherine to Faulkner he smiled. ‘She was a witch,’ he said simply, ‘and one must not suffer a witch to live.’
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