cold, and over-cooked meat that invariably emerged from our kitchen.
Old Barcock cleared the plates as quickly as his ancient legs and uncertain grip would permit, shrugging off the feeble attempts at assistance offered by Elias, the imbecile that Cornelis perversely chose to employ as his servant. As Barcock tottered away towards the kitchens, Cornelis's minimal patience with the social pleasantries of an English table came to its inevitably early end; after all, he was but the son of an avaricious Dutch merchant.
'So, Matthias,' he said, turning towards me. 'You have no prospect of another command?'
Cornelia grimaced, but her brother did not see her expression. I said, as amiably as I could, 'The commissions for this year's expeditions were issued long ago, Cornelis. Our ships are nearly all in the MediterraneanâAdmiral Lawson's fleet against the corsairs, while my Lord Sandwich takes possession of Tangier and brings home our new queen. I cannot see how I would have had any prospect of a command this year, even if I had not lost my ship.'
My beautiful, pert Cornelia defended me against myself, as she always did, and said quickly, 'You forget, my brother, that Matthew may not need to seek further command in the navy. His heart is set on a commission in the Life Guards, which is what we all hoped for when the king was happily restored to his throne. Command at sea was the last thing Matthew desired, or sought.'
This was true, though I could still hear the words in my head, still fresh in my memory:
Teach me the sea, Mister Farrell.
'Now his brother, the earl, is using all his influence with his friend the king to secure a place for Matthew in the Guards, where he belongs,' Cornelia continued. 'It will be a fit position for a man of his breeding, away from all these rolling men with their strange talk of ropes, sails and bearingsâ'
My mother looked up from the last rigid remnants of her capon and said vaguely, 'Of course, my dear Cornelis, your sister means no disrespect to your calling or your kind. In your country, the son of the next burgomaster of Veere can become a captain in a great navy that is the dread and envy of all the world. In our country, though, the navy is no place for a gentleman and a Cavalier. Commands here go to captains who served under Noll Cromwell, that incarnate Satan. If the king was to make the navy solely the preserve of our kind, as he has done with the army, I would be content for my son to serve in it. But at this momentânot.'
Although they warred on almost every matter under the sun, Cornelia had learned rapidly to recognize my mother's absolutes, after which no further discussion was permissible and the subject of conversation had to be changed. Her brother, lacking both Cornelia's experience of the dowager countess and her unfailing good sense, blundered on regardless. 'Then why, my lady, does your king appoint such Satanic captains, and put over them admirals like Sandwich and Lawson, who surely also served Cromwell and your Commonwealth? And have not men of breeding, as you call them, always commanded in your navy, during those times when you have had kings or queens? What of Matthias's grandfather, for instance?'
I braced myself for an imperious explosion from my mother, whose face was fast colouring to flame. Two subjects, and two only, infallibly drew such a reaction from her.
The first was the execution of King Charles the First of Blessed Memory, Saint and Martyr, in whose honour she lit an unconscionable number of candles on every anniversary of his birth, death, and certain other days of the year that she associated with his sacred memory. Towards those she held responsible for his death, she reserved depths of vitriol probably unique even for a Cavalier woman of her age and station.
The second was her father-in-law, my grandfather and namesake, Matthew Quinton, eighth Earl of Ravensden. He was there now, behind her. The vast portrait painted for the earl's