The King's Chameleon (38 page)

‘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.'

Gooding sat at the table and called for some eggs as Faulkner exchanged a glance with Katherine. ‘I cannot leave you alone.'

‘Do not be so foolish. He is harmless … now.'

Faulkner regarded Gooding. He did not believe for a moment that Gooding's prayers had had the slightest influence on Judith's cancer and saw him only as a man who did not behave rationally.

Feeling Faulkner's eyes upon him, Gooding looked up and smiled again. ‘Do you wait upon Sir Henry Johnson, Kit?' he asked blithely.

‘That is … was my intention.'

Gooding looked at the summer sunshine streaming through the window and nodded happily. ‘I think that I shall accompany you. Yes, I shall, if you have no objection.'

The thought of having Gooding under his supervision rather than left in the house with Katherine and the servants weighed more heavily than having to explain the presence and behaviour of a lunatic to Johnson. Fifteen minutes later they stepped out and set their faces towards Blackwall just as they had done years earlier when they had been building the
Duchess of Albemarle
.

The summer passed like a dream. With peace finally concluded at Breda in July, almost the entire household embarked in the
Hawk
and sailed for Harwich. They anchored in the Blackwater before reaching the Naze of Essex and, as they made their approach to the harbour at Harwich, Faulkner pointed out, to those interested, the fort at Landguard Point where the Dutch had landed before their descent upon the Medway. ‘You will recall you heard the guns,' he reminded Edmund.

‘Good heavens, so I did,' said Edmund, beaming at his boys.

As for Gooding – though it required a certain legerdemain on the part of Faulkner and Edmund – he had been allowed to think that he had resumed his old role as a partner. In fact they gave him the most complex book-keeping tasks and requested he audit the accounts for some years, checking especially how much money had been remitted to the King. Apparently contended enough, Gooding took on these tasks willingly, asking nothing more than his daily bread and the opportunity to join a dissenting congregation. For the most part, once it had been established, he was left to his routine, though he accompanied them to Harwich, along with Edmund, Hannah and her two boys.