Hannah was married to Edmund Drinkwater at St Dunstan’s church, Stepney, in early April when a spring breeze lifted the heads of the last of the daffodils that grew among the headstones in the church-yard as the guests assembled.
The bride’s mother did not attend, a scandal augmented by the presence of the bride’s father’s mistress, neither of which circumstances prevented a goodly attendance of family friends, chiefly seafaring gentlemen with their wives. These were mostly Brethren of the Trinity House, but included the commander, mates, surgeon and purser of the Honourable East India Company’s ship Eagle, and some of their professional colleagues from others of the Company’s ships. Opinion was divided as to whether the condescension of His Highness Prince Rupert of the Rhine in attending as escort to Mistress Katherine Villiers excused the impropriety of her presence, or compounded it. More certainly popular among the gossips of east London was the sight of Honest George Monck and his homely duchess, whose obvious pleasure at being present made up in greater part – or so a portion of social opinion opined – for the awkwardness attaching to the bride’s father’s moral turpitude. Not that this troubled many, most enjoying a whiff of scandal, aware that a certain louche conduct was now licensed, particularly by the King and his Court if all that was rumoured was true. Nevertheless, it did not go unremarked that the Faulkner family had but recently buried a son – a suicide, nonetheless, and a man rumoured to have been plotting against the King – and had effectively buried the unwanted wife who was said to be chained to her bed. Such ill-informed rumours gained a certain currency, buttressed by Captain Faulkner’s unconventional conduct which, it was said, had never been properly explained to the wretched groom.
Happily oblivious to all this, Faulkner, splendid in dark blue silk and a new full-bottomed wig of chestnut, gave his daughter away. He deeply regretted that neither Judith nor Henry were present but, he told himself, Henry had taken his own life and Judith might have attended her own daughter’s wedding, had she not chosen otherwise. Thus his only real sorrow was the absence of Hannah’s surviving brother, Nathaniel, who was at sea.
After the wedding breakfast and the toasts, Faulkner introduced Edmund Drinkwater to the Duke and Duchess of Albemarle as ‘the newly appointed commander of the ship named in Your Grace’s honour’. This further delighted the duchess who expressed herself as being ‘tickled’.
In the days that followed the departure of Hannah on a brief honeymoon, a sense of normality began to settle upon the house in Wapping. In Drinkwater’s absence Faulkner took in hand the final stages of the preparation of the Duchess of Albemarle for her maiden voyage, acutely aware that Hannah’s ecstasy would be short-lived when her husband assumed command and sailed once again for the Malabar coast, Bengal and China.
Of course, the past hung like a shadow over them all, for Judith remained in her room, attended by Molly, her maid, who took in her food, helped her wash and dress and saw to her daily needs. The only other member of the family she would countenance admitting was her brother Nathan. She reserved all intercourse for him. Gooding thus occupied the equivocal status of go-between. It was contrary to his honest nature and distracted him from what he did best – run the partners’ business.
The morning after Faulkner had left his bed, he had called Gooding in to brief him on the current state of affairs. Having ascertained that no message had been received from Lord Clarendon, it was only then, his personal anxieties set aside for the time being, that Faulkner had looked properly at Gooding. In asking about their ships, and in particular the Duchess of Albemarle, he had noticed Gooding’s changed appearance. For a moment, with his wits still dimmed by his fever, he could not identify the detail but then it had come to him. Nathan was less kempt and looked far older than his years. It seemed to Faulkner that he had been absent for many, many months, so intense had been the experience of his Dutch ‘adventure’ and the mental wanderings of an over-heated brain, but when reality had dawned it had been clear that his brother-in-law was in some distress. As Gooding’s voice had concluded his summary it seemed to fade, as though all the energy had been drained from him; he had stared through lacklustre eyes into the middle-distance.
‘What’s amiss, Nathan? You look like death.’
Gooding had stirred, regarding Faulkner abstractedly; then he had gradually gathered himself, finally shaking his head. ‘Forgive me, Kit,’ he had said, at last, ‘but I … I am …’
‘You are what?’ Faulkner had prompted.
Gooding had shaken himself, like a dog emerging from water, before his pent-up feelings had burst from him in a torrent of words. ‘I am all out of sorts. Ever since that evil day when I fell in the beastliness of drink, the world had changed around me. Now Henry is dead by his own hand, Judith is mad, and you, you are changed and brought near death. Nothing, it seems, is the same, and that upon which I depended is shifted like the ground under-foot when the earth moves.’ He had run his hand over his head, through his now unfashionably cropped hair, his expression a mixture of fear and desperation. ‘We have a woman who comes and goes, and has been like an angel to you and Hannah, who Hannah clearly worships yet bears with her the reputation of … of …’ He had paused, glancing at Faulkner almost as though expecting a blow.
Faulkner had said quietly, ‘Of a whore, d’you mean?’
‘Of a scarlet woman … your scarlet woman,’ Gooding went on. ‘And if such domestic troubles were not enough I have the business to run in your protracted absence, occupied in God alone knows what evil, evil in which my sister—’ Here Gooding had choked back a sob, his affection for Judith clear and unambiguous, before repeating himself as he laboured on. ‘In which my sister has been caught up and her son, my nephew, has become a suicide!’
‘He was my son, too, Nathan,’ Faulkner had said in a low voice.
‘I know. I know.’ Gooding had shaken his head as tears flowed freely down his be-stubbled cheeks. ‘But what, Kit, what shall become of Judith? She is in no mind to come to her senses and berates me for continuing my association with you. But what am I to do? We must maintain our association if only for her sake, for she is past handling her own affairs, so envenomed is she with the world, the King, the Parliament – but mostly, it seems, with you.’ He had leaned forward and put his head in his hands, giving way to great wracking sobs. Unnoticed by Gooding, the parlour door had opened, and Katherine appeared. Distracted by the movement and embarrassed at Gooding’s breakdown, Faulkner had looked up. Placing his finger to his lips he had motioned for her to come into the room, which she had done, quietly closing the door behind her to lean against it. The impropriety of inviting her to witness his brother-in-law’s humiliation had not immediately struck Faulkner. His action had been instinctive, as though Katherine was now so close a confidante that the intimacy with Gooding had been of no account.
After a few moments, and oblivious of Katherine’s presence behind him, Gooding had drawn himself upright, dashing the tears from his eyes. He had cleared his throat before he could speak, but it had been clear that he had mastered himself. He was still oblivious to Katherine’s presence, though Faulkner could smell the warmth of her body and her perfume. Gooding began to speak again. His voice had recovered its old timbre.
‘I cannot … cannot deny that my sister is not the women she once was. Much of what she has told me troubles me, but the matters of which she speaks cannot be laid upon my own soul …’
‘Except?’ Faulkner had ventured.
Gooding had stared at him. ‘You know?’
‘I guessed. She has confessed something to you, something to bind you in and use to drive a wedge between us. She is clever, cunning and determined, Nathan.’
‘She is the woman … She is Eve … She is either Eve or a witch!’
Faulkner forbore looking at Katherine, fixing Gooding with his eyes. ‘What did she confess, Nathan?’ he had asked quietly.
Gooding had hesitated before he had again lowered his voice so that it had been almost inaudible. ‘How she almost had you killed.’
‘What?’
‘How she passed to Henry the weapon with which he tried to kill you.’
Faulkner had hardly heard the end of the sentence. He had realized that Judith had stolen the wheel-lock from him aboard the Blackamoor while he had slept. Later, aboard the Hawk, she had somehow managed to slip it to Henry, mewed up amidships, that much was clear. Faulkner had frowned, his heart beating as it came to him: she could only have accomplished the transfer through the treachery of a third party.
‘Who was it who helped her, Nathan?’ he asked quietly.
Gooding had shaken his head, burying it in his hands.
‘Who, Nathan?’ Faulkner persisted.
‘I cannot tell you … You will exact a price, take revenge.’
‘Perhaps,’ Faulkner had admitted, ‘but does the secret lie happily with you, or shall you feel the cold stirring of conscience every time this person, or persons, is near you … or near to me, for that matter?’ Faulkner had paused, then prompted Gooding, ‘Was it Toshack? I can hardly believe it, but …’ He had been about to say that Judith had charms and beauty, but forbore. Would she have attempted the seduction of Toshack? And how could she when surely he would have been aware the old seaman had entered the cabin? But someone had come in and taken the wheel-lock from her.
Gooding had shaken his head again. ‘No, not Toshack.’
‘One of his crew then?’ Faulkner had stared at Gooding and had then realized who it had been. ‘It was the lad, wasn’t it? It was Hargreaves.’ Faulkner had risen, had felt his head spin and had sunk back into his chair. Katherine had rushed forward in a rustle of grey silk, to kneel at his feet and chafe his hands.
Gooding had looked up. ‘How long has she been in the room?’ he had asked.
Katherine had turned to Gooding. ‘I am not a tell-tale, Mr Gooding,’ she had said simply.
‘What are you then, Mistress?’
‘A whore, as you suppose, but also a woman who finds the world wearying at times, as I perceive you do. We have that in common, sir.’
‘Such treachery,’ Faulkner had muttered, wrapped in his own thoughts. ‘How did she do it?’ he had asked of Gooding.
‘Apparently, the boy had come below to see if either of you required anything. She must have been awake, and you, you were fast asleep again. She engaged him in conversation, discovered he had a widowed mother and told him that she would see that he had, I don’t know, ten, twenty sovereigns if he would do something for her. She tricked him into agreement before revealing what his task was – she prides herself on that; out-Heroding Herod, she said, referring to you. No-one need ever know, she told him, and it was important that Master Henry had the means to defend himself. Master Henry had always been good to him, hadn’t he? All that impressionable nonsense.’ Gooding had shrugged. ‘The boy fell for it, and the deed was done in the darkness. I do not think Toshack understood the need to keep Henry confined or out of touch with anyone. You cannot have explained that properly. In truth I do not know the details but likely he was implicated through ignorance.’
‘And the boy still waits for his money,’ Faulkner had observed drily.
‘Judith has asked me to pay him.’
‘Good Christ!’ Gooding winced at Faulkner’s blasphemy. ‘And what of Hargreaves? Has he shown himself at the counting-house?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I paid him to stay silent.’
The last words ought to have shocked him, Faulkner had thought afterwards, but they did not. After a moment’s consideration he had said, ‘Leave Hargreaves to me. Katherine, my dear, would you pass us that wine and join us in a glass. Now, Nathan, you and I are going to drink to the future, then you are going to shave, I am going to do likewise and we shall take a walk.’ He had brushed aside Katherine’s protestations that he was not yet well. ‘We have ships to attend, a wedding to arrange.’
Some sort of normality had then settled upon them, in the days leading up to the wedding, gradually embedding itself as day succeeded day and routine gathered its own momentum. There was no escaping the past, of course, for Judith’s presence made its own demands upon the household and, in conformity with the law, the wheel-lock was surrendered as a deodand to the crown officers. In due course, Faulkner was obliged to buy it back again as an expiatory act to God for his son’s suicide, the fee being directed to charity. He had walked down to the river at Wapping Stairs and tossed the thing into the grey Thames, watched by several incredulous watermen. He had no doubt that one or other of them had fished it out later, for the sunlight had caught it as it spun from his hand, revealing itself not merely as a hand-gun, but a weapon of great expense.
As Faulkner had watched the waters close over the pistol and the annular rings of disturbed water dissipate amongst the wavelets lapping the stairs, it struck him that the extraction of the fee by the coroner was a further irony associated with the events of the last weeks: he had been made to pay for everything that had occurred, even his son’s death. Now, in a final act, he discarded the beautifully wrought wheel-lock.
Good-riddance, he had thought as he walked home.
As the day of the wedding approached Hannah’s happiness seemed to purge the house of gloom. Judith’s presence in her chamber became an inconvenience, not a reproach. Word circulated of its own volition that she was mad. The national mood played in their favour: Puritan solemnity and virtue were things of the past. Life was to be enjoyed as the Merry Monarch and his court so ably demonstrated. Faulkner was regarded as an unfortunate man whose admittance of a beautiful woman into his house was but a manifestation of his vigour. In a very short space of time, if not admired, he was absolved of moral turpitude.
Two days before the wedding both Faulkner and Gooding were in the counting-house inspecting their ledgers, their clerks about them, when, in accordance with an arrangement, Edmund Drinkwater waited upon them. He was tall and tanned, his features regular with a wide, engaging smile that made his grey eyes twinkle. Faulkner regarded him with approval; Hannah had chosen well, though he could less easily perceive what the young officer saw in her.
The interview went well, and further arrangements were made to have Drinkwater sworn-in as both a Younger Brother of the Trinity House and a sworn officer in the East India Company’s service. These formalities having been attended to, Faulkner took the young man aboard the Duchess of Albemarle. The two men spent four hours touring the ship as she neared completion, agreeing on some late modifications that Drinkwater thought useful. As they regained the shore Drinkwater informed his future father-in-law that he had purchased a house in Stepney and, at the end of the day, they shook hands like old friends.
The day after the wedding Faulkner had walked to the counting-house alone and sought out Hargreaves. ‘I want you to attend me tomorrow morning,’ he told the lad. ‘We shall be gone all day.’ He did not bother to read the youth’s face. It was possible that some apprehension filled his mind, but youth has a short memory and Mrs Hargreaves’s delight at her son’s cleverness in so pleasing Captain Sir Christopher Faulkner that he had been given seven sovereigns was sufficient to wipe from Charlie’s mind any sense of wrong-doing.
Hargreaves was on the doorstep at daylight, eager to please. ‘Perhaps the Good Sir Christopher will be generous again,’ his mother had said as he left her. ‘You keep working for him and be a good lad.’
‘Good morning, Sir Christopher,’ Hargreaves had greeted his master. Faulkner responded civilly, encouraging Charlie to enquire, ‘Pray, where are we bound today, sir?’
Faulkner looked at the lad; his face was open, his use of the nautical term far from disingenuous as they began to walk westwards. ‘Do you know what happens when people incur the King’s wrath, Master Hargreaves?’ he asked conversationally.
‘They hang, sir.’
‘Have you ever seen a hanging?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘Well, you are going to see something a little different today. Hanging is what happens to common felons, thieves, murderers, pirates and so forth. Today you are going to see three executions, not simple hangings but the choking, disembowelling, castration and quartering of three men who were party to the execution of King Charles I. Not only that, Charlie, but they were planning to kill His Present Majesty.’
Hargreaves frowned. ‘Castration … isn’t that …’ He made a twisting gesture towards his loins, making a wry face.
‘That is exactly what it is.’
‘Oh.’ Hargreaves digested the intelligence. ‘What are these men’s names, sir?’
‘John Okey, John Barkstead and Miles Corbett. They were among those who had the King’s father executed.’
It was only when they were walking home that Faulkner addressed Hargreaves’s ill-judged conduct aboard the Hawk. ‘You did wrong when Mistress Faulkner paid you to pass my wheel-lock to Master Henry, Charlie, for she and he were both trying to kill me.’
Hargreaves stood stock still, his face losing its colour, his brow furrowed by incomprehension. ‘To kill you sir? But why?’ Then, seeing his master made no move to answer, and realizing the impropriety of his question, put up his defence: ‘But sir, Master Gooding paid me …’
‘I know, Charlie, I know, but you should forget that. Master Gooding did not know what the money was for, only that he had been told to pay you.’
They resumed their walk in silence for some time, then Hargreaves said, his voice small and anxious, ‘But Master Henry did not kill you, sir … He killed himself.’
‘He put a ball the size of a chestnut into my arse before he turned the gun on himself,’ Faulkner said.
Another long silence followed before Hargreaves asked, ‘Are you angry with me, sir?’
‘Yes, Charlie, I am, but I am angrier with others and I do not think you knew what you were doing.’ Hargreaves had the sense to remain quiet until Faulkner resumed. ‘I will tell you one thing, Charlie, one thing I was not entirely displeased with in your conduct.’
‘What is that, sir?’ Hargreaves asked, eagerly.
‘You saw what they did to those Regicides today, didn’t you?’ Hargreaves shuddered in recollection and nodded. ‘I smelled it, sir,’ he said.
‘Well, had Henry not shot himself it is very likely that they would have done that to him, for he had threatened the King’s life.’ The lad stopped again, his mouth and eyes open wide. ‘Come,’ Faulkner said, placing his hand on the lad’s shoulder, ‘let us go home now.’
After the wedding, the departure of Hannah for her new house, and the executions of the nineteenth of April, Faulkner’s household truly settled into new ways. Nathaniel came home from another voyage to the West Indies and announced he was to marry a young woman who had travelled as a passenger aboard his ship. In due course, Hannah Drinkwater bade her new husband farewell and the East Indiaman Duchess of Albemarle slipped her moorings and made her way downstream, beginning her long passage to India under the command of Captain Edmund Drinkwater. On the ship’s departure Faulkner wrote to Lord Clarendon, informing him of the fact, along with a summary of the manifest. He received neither reply nor acknowledgement but late in August a letter arrived from the Lord Chamberlain inviting ‘Captain Sir Christopher Faulkner to match his sailing yacht against those of His Majesty The King and His Royal Highness The Duke of York, to which may be added the Personal Yachts of several other Gentlemen of the Court’.
The match began abreast of The Tower of London at eight in the morning, taking the ebb down the Thames to Gravesend. One of the King’s several Royal Yachts was moored off Shorncliffe as a turning mark, and the little fleet doubled this and began their passage upstream just as the tide turned. The running was close, and in several reaches it was necessary to tack, the boats criss-crossing each other’s tracks, their helmsmen exchanging challenges and wise-cracks with a waving of wine-bottles and capon’s legs as they wove recklessly in and out of the shipping busy in the waterway.
With Toshack and his crew, Faulkner took Gooding and his son Nathaniel, young Hargreaves making up the numbers and as eager and active as a monkey. Gooding commented on the lad’s ability and asked what Faulkner made of him. Faulkner smiled. ‘He is too good to waste, Nathan. Now do you give that sheet a good haul and let us see if we can beat the Duke to the Kent shore and take his wind.’
It was late when the yachts crossed the finish and lay-to off The Tower where their owners were to disembark at Tower-wharf. Faulkner handed over to Toshack and shook Gooding’s hand before tumbling into the Hawk’s little shallop, which was pulled to the shore by Hargreaves. Stepping ashore Faulkner settled his dress and bade Hargreaves farewell, then he turned and nodded at a fellow competitor, Roger North, landing in his own shallop. The two men walked up to join the ladies. These included Queen Catherine of Braganza, the King’s newly wedded consort, and the Duchess of York, Clarendon’s daughter Anne. With their ladies-in-waiting and attendant gentlemen, they made a glittering company, withdrawing to The Tower where the Constable had been obliged to lay out wine and a cold collation for the King’s pleasure.
Katherine was among the wives of the three other yachtsmen, apparently accepted by them, though the risk of a public rebuffing was not inconsiderable. These ladies greeted their respective heroes with as much enthusiasm as the Courtiers applauded the King and his brother, following the procession as the royal siblings led through the Lion Gate towards Tower Green. The King was in high good humour and summoned his fellow contestants to take wine with him, toasting first the winner.
‘To my Royal Brother!’ They raised their glasses with a ragged hurrah and then the King walked among them, coming last to Faulkner. ‘Ah ha! Sir Kit and – of course – Mistress Villiers.’
Faulkner footed a low bow, and Katherine, on his arm, dropped a low curtsey. The King reminded them of an old joke. He passed a quick glance at Katherine and then detached his competitor with the command: ‘A word with you, Sir Kit, if you please.’
Faulkner felt Katherine remove her arm and back away, her eyes cast down. As Faulkner’s publicly acknowledged mistress, the King could not properly acknowledge her and might, had he been so minded, have ignored her altogether, especially as it was said he had reformed his morals on his marriage. No-one thought this would last, but Faulkner had refused to leave Katherine at home. ‘You faithfully served Her Majesty of Bohemia,’ he said when she remonstrated, ‘and it is well-known that I have a mad wife.’
‘Now, sir,’ said the King as they strolled towards the Royal Menagerie in the shadow of the Conqueror’s pale and massive keep, ‘had I not done so long since, I should have been pleased to have dubbed you this day, for you conceded the ground in tacking off Tilbury.’ The King wagged a finger at him. ‘No, don’t deny it, I noted it, and again when off Deptford. You might have beaten both my Royal Brother and Myself; you have a fine boat in the … What is her name?’
‘Hawk, Your Majesty.’
‘Ah, yes, just so.’
‘I assure Your Majesty that we near missed stays off Tilbury …’
‘Pah! I do not believe Sir Kit missed stays any more than he missed his target in Delft.’
‘Your Majesty?’
‘We have deeply angered the Dutch,’ the King confided, ‘and were it not for Sir George’s skill in getting de Witt’s signature on his warrant – God knows by what means – we would likely be at war with them today.’
‘It was a tricky business, Your Majesty.’
‘But ended most satisfactorily for all of us, you included, Sir Christopher.’
‘As Your Majesty pleases.’
‘How is your wife?’
‘She is quite out of reason, sir.’
‘How so?’
‘She is turned in upon herself; keeps to her room, speaks to no man but her brother and that but occasionally.’
The King stopped and looked about him at the grim ramparts that surrounded them. ‘You were confined here once, I understand,’ he remarked, changing the subject.
‘I was, Your Majesty.’
‘Hmm.’ The King’s grunt was equivocal; Faulkner had been mewed in The Tower at the point of his defection from the King’s service to that of the Commonwealth. ‘Freedom has its price, they say,’ the King remarked, ‘and, like exile, changes a man’s view of the world, do you not agree, sir?’ Then, without waiting for a response, he went on: ‘Now, tell me, have you news of your new ship? Damn me, I forget her name too. No! Wait, she is named for Monck’s duchess, is she not? The Duchess of Albemarle.’
‘No news since she sailed from St Helen’s Roads, Your Majesty, but I am anticipating a profitable voyage, providing, of course, we do not go to war with the Dutch.’
‘Touché, Sir Kit, touché.’ The King laughed. They were walking back towards the company now, and Faulkner knew the unofficial audience was ending. Faulkner could see Katherine cast him an anxious glance; so too did the King. ‘How is she, Sir Kit, your Villiers wench? She looks well for her years.’
Faulkner recognized the intimacy and the reference to his own Villiers connection. He remembered, too, his suspicions of the King when he had been the Prince of Wales exiled in The Netherlands. It was now said that was when he had first encountered Barbara Villiers, a distant cousin of Katherine’s, when she had been used as courier to pass him money. Married, with a compliant husband who had been ennobled at the King’s Restoration, the former Mrs Palmer currently enjoyed the title of Lady Castlemaine along with the pleasures of the King’s bed. It was gossiped abroad that His Majesty had been supping at her house when the news was brought to him that Princess Catherine of Braganza, his affianced, had arrived at Portsmouth from Lisbon.
‘Well, sir, has the cat got your tongue? Does the lady please you?’
‘She delights my heart, Your Majesty,’ Faulkner stammered, aware that the King, shrewd and observant as he was, had noted his hesitation. The two men were now being stared at by the entire assembly. Someone, probably the Duke of York, must have remarked at the interest His Majesty was showing in Sir Christopher Faulkner.
‘Count yourself a lucky man, sir,’ said the King, before nodding his dismissal, turning aside and walking swiftly back towards his new Portuguese Queen. Faulkner made an elegant bow at his retreating figure. As he straightened up, aware that all eyes now followed the King as he re-joined them, Faulkner was flooded with a profound relief, and it took him a moment to set his legs in motion and return to Katherine’s side. Later, when they lay in bed together, he told her what had passed between them.
‘All is well then, between the King and you, my darling,’ she said, rousing herself to look down on him.
‘And he approves of us too,’ Faulkner breathed, drawing her mouth down to his own.
‘Now perhaps we can be happy.’
The Duchess of Albemarle took up her mooring off Blackwall in early January 1663. Having laid his logs and accounts before the Directors of the East India Company and spent a night with his happy wife, Captain Edmund Drinkwater paid his respects to his ship’s owners. Bronzed from his travels, he apologized that his duty required him as a sworn Company commander to report first to the Company’s Court before appearing before his owners. Faulkner waved his excuses aside. ‘I hope you also did your duty by your wife, sir,’ he said, making the young man blush. Hannah had not conceived in their post-marital intimacies, and Faulkner, increasingly aware of his own mortality, was anxious for grand-children.
‘It is enough that my portion goes to the King,’ he remarked to Katherine as they prepared for bed that night. ‘Still, Edmund made a substantial sum from his private trade, so if I starve, he and Hannah will be well enough.’
‘I doubt you will starve,’ Katherine said drily.
Captain Drinkwater sailed again in July. He had pronounced the Duchess of Albemarle a good ship, and Gooding had filled with cargo those spaces the Company could not. Meanwhile, Faulkner did not starve. On the contrary, his and Gooding’s business throve, though the market was not an easy one, with Dutch shipping constantly under-cutting the costs of their English competitors.
Her husband absent in the Indian seas, Hannah gave birth to a fine boy that December. He was christened Edmund in his father’s honour and Christopher in his grand-father’s. Hannah refused to allow her mother to see the baby for fear of the evil-eye. When Faulkner informed Judith she had a grand-child, she stared at him. ‘What is that to me? I know nothing of the father while the mother abandons me, so the child might as well be a bastard.’
Faulkner walked out without a word.
Nathaniel, whose voyages to the West Indies were shorter that those of his brother-in-law, had meanwhile married well and was, besides being captain of one vessel, part-owner in three other ships in the West India trade. He cherished his independence, making his own way in the world, and it came as a terrible shock when his ship went missing, presumed lost in a West Indian hurricane.
When a grieving Faulkner dragged himself upstairs to inform Judith, she smiled at the news. She laid her Bible down and said, ‘Hannah’s bastard may carry your seed, but no-one shall carry your name, Husband. That is the Lord’s judgement upon you.’
Looking at her expression, Faulkner had the unpleasant thought that she had had something to do with the loss of their son. He dismissed the evil assumption immediately. That night Katherine held her lover in her arms. It seemed to her that he was inconsolable, for she knew that it was not merely Nathaniel for whom he wept.
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.’