The King's Chameleon Read Online Free Page B

making him one of four Commissioners, the other three being creatures of the ruling clique. The move was unpopular throughout the army, both with Monck’s forces and the remainder beyond his immediate control. Monck summoned the excluded members of Parliament and secured their agreement to paying the army. Having done this he next withdrew the guard on the Palace of Westminster. The consequence was that, on the twenty-first of February, all the members of Parliament removed earlier by Pride’s Purge resumed their seats.
    News of this event reached Faulkner within an hour, brought by Henry, who reappeared unshaven, begrimed and exhausted. Faulkner had no idea where in this tangle of loyalties, ambitions and blighted hopes his younger son had placed himself, but judging from appearances Henry had learned that matters rarely fell out with the simple elegance the young so often thought inevitable.
    That night London blazed with bonfires and the bells of the churches rang peal upon peal late into the hours of darkness.
    â€˜The day of the saints is over,’ Faulkner said, ordering wine as, despite the night’s wintry chill, he leaned from an open casement, watching the scene in the street and listening to the wild tocsin ringing out over the city. Behind him in the upstairs room the family used for all important assemblies and otherwise served Faulkner and Gooding as an office – the lower floor being given over to the kitchen, parlour and a small servant’s hall – the other members of his household were less cheerful. The Goodings were Puritan through-and-through, and marriage had not softened Judith’s politics.
    â€˜Do close the window, Husband. ’Tis more than the night’s chill that affects me.’
    Faulkner did as he was bid, closing both casement and shutters before turning to confront the gloomy faces in the room. ‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘these will be more cheerful times, you mark my words. Whatever the outcome, Monck’s influence will guarantee a sensible line of government.’
    â€˜Will we have a King?’ said Hannah suddenly, voicing the thoughts of all of them.
    â€˜Who knows, my pretty one, but, let me see, what sayest thee to having a husband?’
    â€˜Husband?’ Judith was astonished. Then she began to remonstrate until, seeing Hannah flush and Faulkner roar with laughter, she divined something afoot. ‘Husband? Hannah?’ she queried, turning from one to the other. ‘What is all this?’
    â€˜My pretty daughter has a gallant, Goodwife. A handsome and comely lad I trow, and I am minded to give her away as soon as she likes. We have had too much of sensible and saintly misery under this roof. Let us celebrate – modestly, of course – and give some thought to the future beyond despatching ships to Jamaica and buying our way again into the interest of the East India Company. Surely you’ll drink to that … Eh, Nathan? Henry?’
    But no-one was listening; they had all gathered round Hannah, who was berating Henry for his indiscretion in telling Faulkner and fending off the questions of her mother who feared above all some indiscretion on her daughter’s part.
    â€˜Well, well,’ said Faulkner to himself with a chuckle, ‘thus is history reduced to the mundane.’
    Later that night, after the explanations and the justifications, and after the name of Hannah’s intended had been revealed as one Edmund Drinkwater, the young mate of an East Indiaman, Faulkner lay in bed unable to sleep. Beside him Judith’s breathing was slow and regular, for she was as exhausted as her younger son with the passing of these past few eventful days. Faulkner thought of Henry, whose face had worn an apprehensive expression ever since Monck arrived in town. He was, quite obviously, beset by anxiety, and Faulkner was minded to let him mature in the stir he had had a hand in creating. His consideration of