She glared at him for a moment and then withdrew. After she had gone, Faulkner expelled his breath. There was an undoubted attraction in what she was demanding; there was no avoiding the passage of time, or of its corroding effect upon his body. He knew, too, that Anne, Duchess of Albemarle, had berated her husband time after time for his constant return to his duty, even though the King increasingly spurned his advice. When her husband had died, she had relinquished her own hold on life, given up and died within days.
Sighing, he stared into the corners of the room for the shadow of old Sir Henry. He too had died disappointed, in penury, forgotten by those he had served. Was that the fate of all men who lived beyond their own time? But it was Judith’s ghost who came to him. In the heat of his diatribe to Katherine, he had forgotten it was she who had described him as ‘the King’s chameleon’.
A fortnight later, Faulkner received a letter. It was from the private secretary to the Duke of York and acknowledged the news that the East Indiaman Duchess of Albemarle was to be broken up. Invoking the King’s name, it thanked Sir Christopher Faulkner for his loyalty, advising him that it was His Majesty’s wish that, on the construction of a replacement placed in the service of the Honourable East India Company, the monies profiting the owner be remitted to His Royal Highness, James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, etc, etc, etc.
In consideration of this, Faulkner read, His Majesty wishes to confer the Honour of a Baronetcy upon Sir Christopher Faulkner, an Honour which would, His Royal Highness felt Certain, and of which His Majesty was Confident, also be Pleasing to Lady Faulkner, in Recognition of her many Services to the House of Stuart and for which His Highness Prince Rupert of the Rhine had particularly Solicited the King’s Majesty.
Faulkner read the letter several times before taking it to show Katherine. They had put the incident outside Westminster Abbey behind them, but this resurrected it with uncanny precision. He handed it to her in silence and watched her face grow pale and the twin patches of colour appear again on her cheekbones. Her hands were shaking as she looked up at him.
‘I shall of course, refuse it,’ he began hurriedly. ‘Besides, I have no sons. As for the profits of a new ship …’
‘Do not build one.’
‘But I am building one.’
‘But no longer for the East India trade,’ she said defiantly. ‘Send it to the West Indies, or the Guinea coast.’ He shrugged and remained silent. ‘Not for the Company,’ she said emphatically.
He shook his head. ‘No, we cannot do that; it is not in the interest of Edmund’s boys, and they are all that is left to me.’
‘Then let Edmund build her in his own name. The King has no demands upon Edmund.’
‘Except the lien every monarch has upon his subjects. He will make the demand of Edmund, and Edmund dare not refuse.’
‘That would be outrageous.’
‘Not to His Majesty, nor to his Secretary of the Treasury, Downing. The King understands that he can mulct only part of the profit otherwise the enterprise is doomed to fail. He is so impecunious and so profligate that he will not wish to kill off a goose capable of laying a golden egg. Charles is no fool … At least it is only be the principal owner’s share. Edmund must find others … You, perhaps.’
Katherine sighed and bit her lower lip. ‘So we must do it,’ she said.
‘He sayeth come and we cometh …’
In the spring of 1671 Letters Patent were issued and Faulkner became a baronet. He and Katherine were received at Court, singled out by the King and subjected to his considerable charm. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court reminded Faulkner of the bevy of young officers who had provided his escort to Sheerness that infamous day he lost a portion of his ear and when he better deserved to have lost his life. The Faulkners made their dutiful obeisance to Their Majesties, Queen Catherine, the King’s Portuguese consort, receiving Lady Faulkner most graciously. Although present, Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland, paid no heed to her distant kinswoman, and the facile frivolity of the Court engendered in both Faulkner and Katherine a vague sense of distaste.
Afterwards Faulkner remarked to his wife that the experience was ‘rather like sleeping with a whore – momentary pleasure leavened with longer-term disgust’.
That summer Sir Christopher and Lady Faulkner removed their modest household into the countryside of Essex, buying a house in Walthamstow. The house in Wapping was sold, and Faulkner’s appearances in London grew infrequent. He was only occasionally to be found at the Trinity House, though he attended the annual convening of the Court at Deptford, staying with Edmund in Stepney. Edmund’s two boys visited their grand-father on several occasions, bringing a lively cheerfulness to the ageing couple, and they joined him when, with Charlie Hargreaves at the helm, Faulkner made several excursions down the Thames in the Hawk. On one occasion they doubled the buoy of the Nore, entering the Medway and venturing as far upstream as Chatham itself so that he might show his grandsons the place where England’s pride was laid low in disgrace.
‘But if the fleet was all burned,’ young Nathaniel had asked, ‘why are there so many ships here now?’
It was a good question, and Faulkner was heartened by the number of men-of-war lying at the trots. Much had been made good since those days of infamy.
‘Because to keep old England safe, my boy,’ he had replied, ‘we have to keep our fleet strong. Some of these ships have been built in recent years.’
‘Are any of these your ships, Grandpapa?’
‘No. These are the King’s.’
‘But you’re a Captain … a King’s Captain, aren’t you? Father says you fought in the old days.’
‘Yes. In the old days,’ responded Faulkner with a smile. ‘Now do you look to the sheets, boys, and stand-by the running backstays as we must go about.’
Faulkner’s fading interest in the politics of the day meant that he took little notice of the talk about the King’s secret conversion to Catholicism. He considered that the Duke of York might compromise himself as a Papist, but Charles was not such a fool. He heard of negotiations with the French and assumed the King was seeking to pawn something for pecuniary advantage, unaware that an alliance with Louis XIV was a preliminary manoeuvre to a new war with the Dutch, or a secret concord between two Catholic kings. When, in the spring of 1672, war again broke out, Faulkner spent a fortnight anxiously fearing a summons from Rupert, but it was James, Duke of York, who commanded the English fleet, now allied to French squadrons under D’Estrées.
Towards the end of May the allied fleets had been at anchor in Sole Bay, off Southwold, revictualling by boat from the Suffolk town. Almost caught at anchor on a lee shore, with many of his seamen ashore collecting stores, the Lord High Admiral sustained a near drubbing in another furiously contested battle. Sending his second-in-command, Banckerts, to engage and cut off D’Estrées, de Ruyter and his main body fell upon the Duke of York’s men-of-war.
Katherine had rejoiced in her husband being ignored when the appointments were made on the fleet’s commissioning, but when Faulkner received the details of the battle in Sole Bay, he was furious, glad that Honest George did not live to see the day. The action had proved long, bloody and furious. York’s vice admiral, the Earl of Sandwich, was dead, drowned escaping from his blazing flag-ship. Thanks to severe damage to his own ship, York himself had been compelled to shift his flag twice during the course of the long day, first to the St Michael and later to the Loyal London.
Although the English had lost four ships and the French one, the Dutch had lost two in action and a third from an explosion in the hours of darkness after the action. Among the many dead lay Admiral van Ghent, and both fleets were almost out of powder and shot. The consequent battle-damage was enormous, while, in the aftermath, the recriminations on both sides were vicious. To the discerning, however, the result was clear: despite the bravery of the English seamen, and pyrrhic though the Dutch victory was, there had been a lack of decisive lead
ership, and the French squadron had played little part in the main action.
‘What did I tell you?’ Faulkner said to Katherine when he read the bulletin to her as they sat in their withdrawing-room. ‘York is competent enough, but he lacks the weight of old Albemarle. He is one of those younger men of whom I spoke, has too much to learn and no time in which to learn it. And why? Because he was up against de Ruyter, and yet old de Ruyter must be sixty-five years of age if he is a day!’
In the weeks that followed, more news filtered through. Although de Ruyter’s action had frustrated allied plans to invade Zealand, the French army had taken four of the Seven United Provinces and the Dutch had flooded the countryside surrounding their great commercial city of Amsterdam. Other cities now followed suit in inundating their hinterlands, but French success had induced a political crisis, ousting the Republicans and elevating the House of Orange. Prince William of Orange now became Stadtholder, but in a savage breakdown of civil order, a mob had soon afterwards barbarously murdered the deposed Stadtholder, Johann de Witt, and his brother Cornelis, architect and political director of the Medway raid.
At home, the Duke of York was forbidden to hoist his flag at sea on the grounds that he was henceforth debarred by the Test Act from holding public office as an openly avowed Catholic. Indifferent to public opinion, having lost his first wife, Clarendon’s daughter Anne, he recklessly married a Catholic Princess, Mary of Modena.
Having garnered this news on one of his infrequent forays to London and a meeting of the Brethren of Trinity House, Faulkner had been eager to pass the information on to Katherine. It was already late, and he found her sitting alone in a darkening room. Calling for candles and a servant to help him with his boots, he flung his hat and cloak on a chair, sat and began impatiently tugging at his boots, all the while relating the news of York’s folly.
‘No good will come of this,’ Faulkner declared, getting the first boots off with a grunt, but she made no reply. After a moment he looked up; Katherine appeared withdrawn, unusually pale and something about her expression alarmed him. He leapt to his feet, hobbled across the room and knelt at her side. ‘What is it, Kate?’
Her breathing was laboured, she was unable to speak and there was terror in her eyes.
Destiny
August 1672–August 1673
In the physician’s opinion Faulkner’s wife was suffering a malignant fever. She was bled, and an anxious Faulkner was advised that rest in a darkened room would bring on the crisis.
‘The disease must culminate, Sir Christopher,’ the physician explained. ‘She is of strong constitution and will likely survive.’
‘But the onset …’ Faulkner choked on the words. ‘It was so swift.’
‘These maladies afflict the body when the humours are out of balance. Was there something that may have upset her sensibilities?’
Faulkner shook his head; he could think of nothing. ‘She seemed in good health when I left for London this morning.’
‘I suspect a miasma; you lived long by the river, and an insidious infection may have laid hold of her for some time since; such things are difficult to attribute. Besides that, there may be an excess of black bile, not uncommon in women of her age. Has she complained of sharp, shooting pains?’
‘She has complained of nothing.’
‘But she has been on the river? In that yacht of yours?’
‘Not for some months.’
‘Ah! But it is proximity, Sir Christopher, proximity. She is a lady of breeding, of sensibility; such creatures possess a delicacy unimaginable to men of your condition. You have survived at sea; those that do so – and there are many that do not – most usually have bovine constitutions.’
Faulkner’s shock was fading, and he was increasingly tempted to do as Edmund had done with Hannah’s quack, kick the knave from his house. The man was prating, gulling him with pure sophistry. The physician must have noticed some change in Faulkner’s demeanour, for he picked up his hat, decided to settle his bill on the morrow and fired his Parthian shot.
‘Keep her warm. A little brandy too. If she will not take it, dab it on her lips. No water; let her sweat out the fever. It is best to bring on the crisis while the body remains substantially vigorous, so that inducement aids a rapid return to health, d’you see? I give you good night, Sir Christopher. I shall, with your permission, call again tomorrow.’
When he had gone, Faulkner sat at Katherine’s bedside. Her eyes remained closed and her breathing was shallow, though not laboured as it had been at first. Sweat bedewed her, and he wiped her brow. Her forehead felt on fire, yet her hands, lying outside the sheets, were cold and pallid, reminiscent of those of a corpse.
All that day and into the following night he sat beside her. From time to time he wet her lips with brandy and wine, wiped her face and held her unresponsive hand. From time to time he prayed too, as best an unbeliever might, but he knew the worst was upon him and that the crisis Katherine confronted was not one she would surmount. Towards dawn he fell asleep, his old head falling forward on the bed, his wig awry, exposing his bald pate. Afterwards, though he had dreamed, he could not recall the spectres – except that he thought he remembered them walking, hand in hand, upon the island of St Mary’s in the Scillies.
He woke suddenly, unable to move and stiff with cramps, to the cold realization of reality. He lay a moment immobile, his neck seized, until he felt a strange sensation, light as a bird’s wing, upon his bare head. With an effort he raised himself; Katherine’s hand fell back upon her covers but he found himself looking into her eyes. They were large and liquid, and full of some inner fire; perhaps more beautiful than at any other time in her life.
Disregarding the agony of sudden movement, he bent over her, for she seemed anxious to speak, though nothing more than a barely perceptible breath escaped her dry lips. He took her hand and stared into her eyes, sensing she wanted water. The physician’s proscription of this meant that he reached for wine and, in holding her up and encouraging her to sip, he achieved little more than ensure it dribbled down her chin. What she had consumed seemed nevertheless to have rallied her. He heard her whisper something and bent again to hear, damning the accursed eternal ringing in his ears. He was never quite certain but always believed her to have said: ‘Farewell, my love.’
He had kissed her and held her, his own body wracked with sobs of such magnitude that he never heard the final death-rattle. It was only after some minutes that, watching her eyes, he realized that the fire in them was extinguished and the liquid depths had grown cloudy. Slowly, he leant forward and kissed her again, then he drew down her eye-lids, slowly rose to his feet. Crossing the room, he opened the casement to allow Katherine’s soul to fly free.
Rupert’s summons came in the following March, wrenching Faulkner from his grief and his daily pilgrimage to Katherine’s grave. His sense of relief was immense; rescuing him from his piteous state. While His Highness’s orders transformed his situation, His Highness’s words transformed his spirit.
I rely, Rupert had written privately in his own hand, upon those Talents that only Sea-officers of your own wide experience can Muster: besides your skills, a lack of Faction, an understanding of our Wants, and of the Enemy’s weaknesses …
Faulkner’s blood ran a little faster. He felt the years slip away, masked by a grim determination. He went once more to Katherine’s grave and then came home to gather his accoutrements, have his armour and harness polished, his sword sharpened and his portmanteau packed. He wrote several long letters, one to Edmund, one each to his grandsons, and another to Hargreaves. Then he sent for a coach.
‘What is to be done, gentlemen? Can none of you tell me?’ Rupert strode up and down the great cabin of his flag-ship, the magnificent Royal Sovereign. Before him a large table was littered with papers, a Waggoner, and two large Dutch charts of the estuary of the Schelde. ‘We have achieved nothing but a vast expenditure of blood and treasure, powder and shot.’ He paused, staring round at
the assembled senior officers, his expression one of weary resignation, for none among them could be charged as not having done his utmost. They remained silent, their eyes downcast, as tired and bereft of ideas as their commander-in-chief.
Faulkner stood at one end of the table in his capacity of Captain-of-the-Fleet, Rupert’s chief-of-staff. He had a good view of the assembly of battle-hardened sea-warriors, some in their half-armour, some soberly dressed, others more colourfully, their sleeves slashed, lace at their throats and wrists. Rupert’s second-in-command, Sir Edward Spragge, tugged at his chin and shook his head. He was flanked by the two admirals commanding the van and rear squadrons of his division: Sir John Kempthorne, whose flag-ship was the St Andrew, and Sir John Butler, the Earl of Ossory, whose flag flew in the St Michael. Next to them stood Rupert’s own squadron commanders: Sir John Harman of the London and Sir John Chicheley of the Charles. Besides Faulkner himself, the only two post-captains present were the Royal Sovereign’s own first and second captains, Sir William Reeves and the curiously named John Wetwang. None seemed able to assist their chief.
Rupert ceased his restless pacing and leaned upon the table, attempting a gentler, more persuasive tone: ‘Ned?’ He looked up at his vice admiral, Sir Edward Spragge.
Spragge sighed. ‘Your Highness, the Dutch possess rare talents in their flag-officers, and they all know their business. It seems to me that one must cut off the head, to kill the body.’
‘Single out their flag officers, d’you mean?’
The King's Chameleon Page 31