The King's Chameleon (26 page)

On morning in mid-September 1665, Faulkner sat in the parlour drinking tea with Katherine and Hannah, who had come a-calling with her young son. Despite the absence of her beloved husband, Hannah was radiant with good health and delight at the toddling Edmund playing at their feet. A shaft of autumn sunlight illuminated the table-ware, all of which set them in good humour as they chatted companionably, chiefly about the boy. They were disturbed by a knock at the door announcing Hargreaves, who brought a message that Gooding wished to speak with his partner in the counting-house.

‘I shall be down this afternoon, Charlie—' Faulkner began.

‘Beg pardon, Sir Christopher,' interrupted Hargreaves who, since witnessing the executions of the Regicides, had proved a model of punctiliousness, ‘but Mister Gooding said it was urgent and brooked no delay. Something about pratique, sir.'

‘Pratique, eh?' Faulkner made a face at the ladies and begged to be excused. Puzzled at this unusual summons, Faulkner knew at once that something was wrong when he saw Gooding's face as he met Faulkner at the entrance to his office. Without a word Gooding made way for him, ushering him into the room where a familiar figure sat, eyes cast down.

‘Captain Lamont! By God, I am astonished you dare show your face here!'

‘I think you should hear the Captain's news from his own mouth. We need to cease handling all cargoes from The Netherlands, Kit.'

‘Why so? That would be throwing away valuable agency money,' he said, looking at Gooding, his eyes asking the question he could not air before Lamont, for all his part in the flight of Judith.

Gooding, sharp as ever after his temporary breakdown, shook his head. Turning to Lamont, Gooding said: ‘Tell Sir Christopher what is rife in Amsterdam, Captain.'

Lamont looked up. ‘Plague, sir. Plague, and 'tis bad …
Virulent
, they are saying.'

Throughout Faulkner's near sixty years of life, plagues had paid intermittent visits to the ports of Europe, and it was known that the plague was as surely spread by ships as the news of its coming. No-one knew how, though many said that if the contagion was not spread by the seamen then it must come by that other roving population – rats. Others, particularly the Brethren of Trinity House whose business in shipping and the professional instincts engendered therein, also considered that the rapid dispersal of the disease could only be explained by the dispersal of cargo; how else – if it arrived by ship – did the plague appear in places distant from the ports of discharge? Indeed, in an outbreak some years earlier, one among their number had what he considered conclusive proof, tracing a consignment of cloth to a small town in Bedfordshire from its landing in London. Forwarded from Rotherhithe, where an outbreak of the plague followed the discharge of a ship from a plague-ridden Antwerp, a fortnight later five people were infected in Bedfordshire. Two had handled the consignment of cotton, the three others were members of their families; in all fifty people had died before the disease had run its course. Despite this conclusive proof, few heeded the warning outside the Fraternity.

Both Faulkner and Gooding took Lamont's warning seriously, not least because he convinced them of the seriousness with which the ever-practical Dutch city-fathers of Amsterdam were taking it, and the fact that both of Lamont's own mates were sick.

‘Buboes,' he explained succinctly as both Faulkner and Gooding instinctively drew away from him. The case of Lamont and his bilander
Mary
were indeed a matter of pratique. When the old master-mariner had withdrawn, to report his case to the Custom-House officers, Faulkner undertook to notify Trinity House, responsible for the governance of the shipping in the Thames. His mind was in a turmoil, not least occasioned by his proximity to Lamont and the thought of conveying the infection to his home, and he was picking up his hat when Gooding said something indistinguishable.

‘What's that you say?' he asked, looking at his brother-in-law. Gooding stood transfixed, his eyes almost wild, though whether from fear, as seemed likely, or some terrible visitation it was impossible to say. ‘Come; what's amiss? Surely you cannot have taken the contagion that quickly …'

‘It's
her
,' Gooding said, still half-talking to himself.

‘Her? What the devil do you mean,
her
? Whom do you mean?' Faulkner was frowning, eager to be off and spread the word so that some sort of precaution might be taken and that herbs, tobacco and brimstone might be obtained to fumigate his house.

‘Judith,' said Gooding, his expression one of fervent conviction. She has bewitched us all, damn her.'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Nathan …'

Gooding closed the distance between them and nailed Faulkner to the spot. ‘Don't you understand?' he said insistently, ‘Lamont's vessel, the
Mary
– Judith half-owns her; she has conjured this, summoned God-knows what demons to destroy! Now I know what she has been conniving in that chamber of hers! She wishes to destroy us all – King, Parliament, you, me, all of us …'

‘But that is impossible!'

‘Is it? Cannot you hear the arguments in her favour? The corruption of the Court, the unholy vengeance taken upon the exhumed corpses of Cromwell, Ireton and the others, the martyrdoms of the Regicides, the frustration of her divinely appointed mission and the death of her son. Why, Kit, I could find you more detail if I wished. God knows she has preached her venom at me for weeks now, but surely you must see what has been accomplished under our roof … under our very noses … or under mine, at least.'

Faulkner shook his head. Gooding was in distress; all his old Puritan instincts had been stirred up, conflated and confused. ‘No, no, Nathan, there is no logic in your argument. Vengeance is God's, not Judith's. She is as small a grain of sand in God's world as are we all … This is just coincidence; another ship could have brought the same news into the river; the
Mary
will not be only vessel arriving from Amsterdam this week.'

‘No, no, Kit,' Gooding said frantically, button-holing Faulkner in his eagerness to convince his partner. ‘That is true, but the
Mary
DID bring the news and, Almighty God help us, perhaps the plague itself. To say that the plague is sent to chastise us is no conjuration of my imagination; it will thunder from every pulpit the first Sunday the news gets abroad.'

‘Yes, yes, I know the prating priests will say that before they decant themselves into the country or lock themselves in their priest-holes, or wherever they secrete themselves, but that at least is an argument few can rebuff. Vengeance is, as I say, attributable to God …'

‘But Almighty God took possession of it. As the Lord sayeth in the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter Thirty-two, Verse Thirty-five, “To Me belongeth vengeance and recompense.” Thus did Almighty God lay his claim, but He did not wrest evil from the Devil or his agents. Why else would war, the plague, malice and all sundry evils stalk the world still? God's words were a rebuke; an order to desist from such acts.
That
is why Judith is a witch! She is aware of, but defies, God's commands. She is an active agent of Satan!'

‘But—'

‘To argue as you do is to deny evil and, in particular, to deny witchcraft. Surely you do not deny witchcraft?'

Faulkner gently pushed Gooding's plucking hands from his person. There was a distinct wildness in Gooding's eyes that he had never seen before; this was not Puritan zeal, or, if it was, it was a perverse form, such as had troubled Judith and Henry. Were they all mad? The thought revived his fears for Hannah and her children, born and unborn. No, Hannah was not mad. ‘Nathan,' he said firmly, ‘you must stop. Now. You are in danger of derangement. Judith is no witch but a deeply troubled woman who has perhaps a contagion of the mind and for that I must bear my part. Lamont has brought us news, bad news, but that is enough. We – you and I – are not fools to be gulled by superstition. Let us not take fright like those infected by the moon. This pestilence may overwhelm us all but I for one am reluctant to attribute it entirely to God or the Devil.'

Gooding shook his head, turning aside, murmuring that he was convinced of his argument and nothing could, or would, shake him from it.

Reluctantly, Faulkner left Gooding and hurried off. Later in the day he returned home, his mind made up, and at dinner that evening, having acquainted Katherine with the dreadful news, he told both her and Gooding what he had decided. ‘We will put such personal belongings as we require aboard the
Hawk
and take her down-Channel. We may land somewhere in the West Country, Falmouth, perhaps, or even,' he said, turning to Katherine, ‘the Isles of Scilly.'

She responded, at his reminder of their encounter there many years earlier, ‘I can think of no lovelier place, and it would be well to take Hannah with us.'

‘Of course. We can shut the house up …'

‘You cannot,' said Gooding with a sharp finality, as though the matter was put beyond argument.

‘Why, pray?' asked Katherine, before Faulkner could interject.

‘Because my sister cannot be removed.'

Gooding had calmed himself since Faulkner had left him, but his present mood was unfamiliar to Faulkner – and deeply troubling. ‘Cannot or will not, brother-in-law?' He paused, then went on, ‘If she will not come, then she must be commanded. I am still her husband.'

Gooding dropped his eyes and bit his lip. ‘But you are not mine,' he murmured.

‘We shall go …'

‘I shall stay,' said Gooding, his head held high, his tone accusatory. ‘Someone must look after our affairs.'

Faulkner took Katherine's hand, squeezing it reassuringly. ‘And Judith?' he asked Faulkner. ‘What of her?'

‘I cannot see you insisting upon taking her,' Gooding said, looking with deliberation at Katherine.

The sudden tension in the room was utterly foreign. Katherine was now clenching her hand, and he sensed her holding her breath. This was a truly awful moment. Faulkner knew things would never again be the same between them. Picking his words carefully, he said, ‘I shall do my duty, Nathan, as you very well know.'

‘She is a witch,' Gooding said in a low and level tone. Katherine drew her breath in sharply and in that moment, Faulkner divined his unholy purpose.

‘You cannot condemn your sister, but you wish her to remain here, to become infected and to perish.'

Gooding made no response for a moment, then he said, ‘God's will be done,' and rose from the table. As he withdrew he began intoning the ninety-fourth psalm: ‘O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth …'

The door closed behind him, and Katherine turned to Faulkner. ‘He's mad.'

‘They are all mad.'

In the weeks that followed no-one died of the plague and Gooding behaved as though nothing particularly unusual had occurred. Only once did he refer to earlier disputes between himself and Faulkner – disputes and arguments that had attended their first acquaintance when Gooding and his sister were so obviously Puritan and Faulkner, then an ingénue in such matters, had seemed to them to embrace the opposing argument. The allusion, so Faulkner supposed, went by way of excusing Gooding's extreme behaviour. As for the conduct of their business and daily life, it fell again back into its comfortable rut; more or less.

Lamont's
Mary
was quarantined and one of his two mates died. The cause of death was attributed to the pox. The other recovered and, in due course, the
Mary
discharged her mixed cargo. True, occasional intermittent reports of the plague in Amsterdam reached them, but London dismissed the rumours of its arrival in England; there was simply no evidence. Faulkner laid aside his plans for an evacuation of his house in Wapping.

Then, in early December, two men, said to be French, died in a house in Long Acre. The deaths were concealed, but word got abroad. Two physicians and a surgeon were despatched by the Secretaries of State to examine the bodies and their conclusions were duly printed in the Weekly Bill of Mortality, in the usual way: two men had died of the plague. Before the month was out another death was declared to be due to the plague; it too was near Drury Lane. From then on, although the death-toll mounted, this was attributed to the season. There had been no mention of the plague as a cause of death, and in this atmosphere of increasing hope, the
Duchess of Albemarle
returned home. The voyage had not been as successful as Edmund had hoped. He had lost money in his private investment and was now perturbed for his own economic future.

It was not until April that deaths of the plague and spotted-fever, held to be one and the same thing, reappeared. The number of its victims thereafter rose inexorably, and once again Faulkner grew alarmed. Edmund had already expressed his anxiety for his family's health, and Faulkner had reassured him, floating his intention to leave the city if necessary. As for the
Duchess of Albemarle
, Faulkner and Gooding agreed not to submit her for lading by the Company that year, for if the plague took hold there would be an embargo and more money would be lost. Gooding could find a cargo for her; there were goods enough stacked in the warehouses as trade slowed for fear of the plague and in anticipation of an embargo. In May Edmund left for Jamaica, taking up the slack left by the absence of his late brother-in-law. In such threatening and uncertain circumstances, Edmund's departure was painful, especially for Hannah, but it was generally agreed that it was the best possible course of action. Faulkner took some comfort from the arrangement, though anxiety ate at his guts as he lay unsleeping with worry.

By mid-summer, war had again broken out with the Dutch. This last news filled Faulkner with dread, for he feared a summons to command a man-of-war which would take him away from tending his household. Nevertheless, his conscience prompted him sufficiently to make known his willingness to serve, but his offer was not taken up.