Gentleman Captain Read online

  'Captain?'

  'Teach me the sea, Mister Farrell. Tell me the names of the ropes, and the ways to steer a course. Teach me of the sun and the stars, and the currents, and the oceans. Teach me how to be a proper captain for a king's ship.'

  I held out my hand to Kit Farrell. After a moment, he took it, and we shook.

  Chapter Two

  'Like you, Matthias, I was captain of a ship at twenty-one,' said my brother-in-law, 'but unlike you, I did not lose her before I was twenty-two.'

  From most men, this would have been an intolerable goad and insult, worthy of a blade in the ribs at dawn. From Captain Cornelis van der Eide, it was a rare proof of the existence of his tortured sense of humour, generally thought to be as mythical as the gryphon.

  'Cornelis!' His sister, my wife, admonished him, her eyes flashing like the broadside of a sixty-gunner. 'You must not jest with Matthew over this. Many men died on his ship, and he feels their loss each day.'

  Although Cornelia was fully ten years her brother's junior, and as slight as he was bovine, she made him flush like a child caught stealing apples from an orchard. She could always bend him to her will in an instant, this proud, square-chested captain; a man who could stand up to the hardest burgomasters of Amsterdam and trade broadsides with the best.

  Cornelis mouthed an apology and raised his glass to me in supplication. It was the first time that my brother-in-law and I had met since the loss of the Happy Restoration, six months before. Cornelis's ship was in Erith Reach, taking on supplies while her captain consulted with our Navy Board, for some reason unspecified. He was soon to sail for the Iceland fisheries, where he was to guard the boats that gleaned their rich harvest from that perilous sea. But for all his faults, Cornelis van der Eide took his family responsibilities seriously, and even the apparently pressing nature of his expedition could not prevent him paying his respects to his sister and his in-laws in our strange old house in the depths of rural Bedfordshire, fifty or more miles north of his berth.

  In his ineffably dull way, Cornelis had been holding forth for much of the meal on the merits of training captains to the sea from the age of, say, nine, which was precisely how old he had been when he was first taken out beyond the Schooneveld shoals and into the North Sea by a schipper uncle. Then he had treated us to a profoundly tedious discourse on the sailing qualities of his new command, a strong forty-gun ship called the Wapen van Veere. He seemed particularly pleased with the sheer of the wales, and I wondered momentarily why he had such blubbery sea-leviathans fastened to the side of his ship. Cornelis went on to essay an opinion on the alleged superiority of the Dutch system of government, with its seven virtually independent provinces, five mutually suspicious admiralties, and countless squabbling factions.

  I had heard Cornelis' opinions many times–most memorably at interminable length at my wedding feast–and merely nodded passively from time to time. My eyes wandered instead to the decaying vaulting and beetle-eaten roof timbers of the cavernous hall in which we ate, and as I did at every meal, I contemplated the possibility of the entire structure crashing down to kill us all. My gaze moved down to Cornelia, to her clean and louse-free hair, her smooth, round face and delicate white bosom. She wore, in Cornelis's honour, a grand orange dress that I knew to be a political statement against her brother's dogged republicanism. She would have none of Cornelis's defence of their homeland. She had adopted the ways of her new country to a gratifying degree, and in any case was relishing the rare opportunity to resume her lifelong squabble with her sibling.

  'Oh, come, brother!' she cried mockingly. 'Surely even you can see that the present government of Nederland is a calamity? Holland against Zeeland, the other six provinces against Holland, Orangists versus Republicans, Amsterdam versus the world! And what of religion, Cornelis? A state that publicly preaches the dourest version of Calvinism imaginable, yet gladly tolerates Catholics, Jews, Devil-worshippers and God knows what as long as they make enough money to swell the coffers of that same state! If this is De Witt's "True Freedom", brother, then God preserve us from it!'

  Cornelis looked on her indulgently, as he always did, for in that, at least, we were agreed: we both loved this bright, impetuous, and forthright creature, and would defend her with every breath in our bodies.

  Cornelis said, mildly, 'Then what would you put in its place, sister?' Of course, he knew the answer perfectly well: the orange dress was eloquent enough.

  'Why, monarchy, what else? Look at England, now happy again under her rightful sovereign after all those long, miserable years of emulating our foolish Dutch republic!' Knowing rather more than my wife of the discontents that swirled around the court, of the murmurings of the London mob and the emptiness of the royal exchequer, I raised an eyebrow. Cornelia continued, 'The Prince of Orange should be made king, brother, and De Witt and all his acolytes in the States-General sent packing back to the Amsterdam brothels whence they sprang!'

  Not even Cornelis could tolerate such a slander from his sister, who seemed thus to accuse Johan De Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland and the man who held the entire shambolic Dutch state together, of being a whoremaster. Captain van der Eide drew himself up in his chair. 'The prince is a lad of twelve, sister!' he said. 'Make him king, and we will have a civil war to equal the one that tore England apart...'

  Thus they continued, and I returned my gaze to the ceiling. As I did so, I contemplated the mystery of how this impenetrable pottage of rude, avaricious merchants, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, could dare to contend with England for dominion over the trade of the world. We had already fought one war, in the Commonwealth's time, and sometimes on the quarterdeck of the Happy Restoration I considered the likelihood of another, and the prospect of sailing into battle against my good-brother Cornelis. It was a thought that ever filled me with dread, for I knew full well that behind Cornelis's dull face and speech lay the heart and mind of a consummate seaman and ferocious warrior.

  My mother, attired as always in black mourning weeds, stirred from her meditation of the fireplace. Perhaps she had experienced Cornelia's sharp mockery herself often enough to know that it was time to lead the warring van der Eide siblings onto safer ground. 'Tell me, Cornelis. Your parents. They are well?'

  Cornelia fixed her lively brown eyes on a particularly alarming piece of capon on her plate, then took up her knife and set about it mercilessly. Despite being, somehow, their child, my wife cared even less for Meinheer en Mevrouw van der Eide, of Veere in Zeeland, than did my mother. Cornelis van der Eide de Jonge contemplated the question as though it was a complex navigational problem. Ja, my Lady Ravensden, they are well. Our father expects to become burgomaster of Veere this year, or the next. My mother is a little troubled by the rheum and the gout, but otherwise—'

  'So are we all, Cornelis, at our age,' said my mother with as much kindness as she could muster, cutting off any further discussion of Mevrouw van der Eide's symptoms. Mother had never been a patient woman, and the arthritic stoop and stiffened fingers of she who had once been the tallest and most striking of court beauties made her intolerant of the frailties of others. She looked at her son-in-law with her head cocked slightly to one side, an expression that she usually reserved for the dullest of our tenants, or for Cornelia; it was a rare and welcome occasion, I thought drily, when the two of them could turn their fire onto a guest, rather than training their barbs against each other. My mother was silent for a moment, then glanced at her plate and evidently decided that the conversation had only one refuge left to it, if it was not to stray back to navies, politics or the van der Eide family.

  'You found the capon to your liking, I trust?'

  Naturally, she had not the slightest interest in her son-in-law's opinion of the capon. Although my mother never commented on the matter, I suspected that she had regretted almost from the first moment her agreement to marry her younger son into this tedious burgher stock. The marriage contract, born of Quinton desperation and penury in the bleakest days
of exile, had given the van der Eides their connection to a bloodline of English aristocracy, allowing them to strut a little more proudly to the Grote Kerk in Veere each Sunday. To be fair, I had acquired a wife so pleasant, witty, musical, supportive, and utterly unlike her parents and brother, that I sometimes contemplated the impossible proposition that Mevrouw van der Eide had cuckolded her husband with some exotic foreign mercenary who chanced to ride through Veere in the autumn of 1638, on his way to the wars. For all my contentment with Cornelia in those days, though, the Quintons had never quite received the healthy dowry that was meant to accompany her, and which would have gone far towards retrieving our family's woeful financial state. For all his bourgeois stolidity, Cornelis van der Eide de Oude was surprisingly evasive on the matter. There was always some vague talk of problems on the Amsterdam insurance bourse, or of difficulties with cargoes from Smyrna. Or, on other days, Batavia.

  Presumably ignorant of his hostess's doubts, Cornelis van der Eide contemplated his remaining piece of capon dubiously for a moment, then brightened as the correct answer presented itself to him. 'Of course, my lady. As always, Ravensden Abbey provides a repast fit for a king.'

  Samuel Barcock, the ancient, lanky and puritanical steward of Ravensden, permitted himself a shadow of a smile from his position behind my mother's chair. The compliment from the brave and godly Captain van der Eide would get back within the hour to the abbey's cook and housekeeper, Goodwife Barcock, and within a day it would be all around the clucking gossips in their Bedford prayer meeting. I privately applauded my block-headed brother-in-law for learning enough of the etiquette of our home in his two previous visits to lie outrageously about the tough, 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 Mediterranean–Admiral 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 bearings—'

  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 moment–not.'

  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 eightieth birthday by Van Dyck himself was mounted on the east wall of the great hall, directly behind the countess's chair, so that she could eat without ever looking on the old man's face. There he was, arms akimbo and in a breastplate, attempting to look forty years younger and failing utterly, thanks to his own vanity in employing the greatest artist of the day, an artist who caught unerringly every line and wrinkle: this man who had sailed the seas with the likes of Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh, the darling of the London mob, who had won the heart of the great Queen Bess herself, and whose legend had been drummed in to me throughout my childhood years.

  My mother, who had done none of the drumming, drew in her breath, and said, 'Matthew's grandfather was a mere pirate–he nearly bankrupted and destroyed the House of Quinton with his lunatic schemes—'

  Cornelia interrupted bravely. 'My lady, Barcock is beckoning. The rhubarb fool, I think.'

  The dowager countess recollected herself. It did not do to tell tales to the servants of their social superiors, even a long-dead one whom Samuel Barcock had served for forty years, and whom he had heartily detested as a dissolute, godless rake. As the uncomfortably liquid rhubarb fool was served, I endeavoured to deflect Cornelis onto safer ground.

  'The king seeks to put behind us all the quarrels of the late unhappy times, brother. Our past differences are forgotten, and not to be brought to mind. Reconciliation is our watchword, now–Cavaliers and Roundheads, all serving together, all loyal to king and England.' My mother sniffed in disapproval, but, kings being infallible in her eyes, it was just possible that her displeasure was directed at the rhubarb fool, and not at Charles the Second. 'Of course, some of those who served under Cromwell and the rest have been condemned—'

  'The regicides, may they rot in hell for signing the death warrant of the blessed royal martyr,' said my mother, straying dangerously close to bringing up her two greatest hates in the space of one dessert course.

  'And justly executed, of course,' I said smoothly, bowing to my mother. 'But the king owes his throne to the likes of Montagu and General Monck, now the Duke of Albemarle. You remember how it was, brother.'

  Vivid in my mind was the garret room in the van der Eide house in Veere, on an April day almost exactly two years before. Cornelia lay asleep in bed alongside me, as naked as a Rubens model, her long brown hair spilling wantonly over the pillow. There was no rush to stir. There never was, for the penniless younger brother of an exiled traitor. Then the deepest bell of the Grote Kerk in Veere had begun to toll, slowly at first, then steadily faster. Guns fired from some of the ships further down the Veerse
Meer, then from some of those in the harbour. As the distant cheering started to draw nearer, along the quay beneath our window, I got up and pulled on my breeches. The crowd was running, and shouting, and dancing, English, Scots, Irish and Dutch all riotously happy together. Cornelia awoke, pulled the sheets around herself and joined me at the window. I recognized a few of our fellow exiles. There was Sir Peter Harcourt, worth two thousand a year before the wars, pouring small beer over his dirty face and the rags of his last shirt. Old Stallard, who had once been a cathedral dean and was brother to a viscount, was pulling a protesting tavern wench into an alley, lifting her skirts exultantly. I cried out for the news, but no one could hear. The mob spilled past, some towards the church, others towards the Campveer Tower at the water's edge. Then I saw Cornelis. His ship was at the quay, almost beneath our window, the outermost of three van der Eide vessels readying themselves for a voyage to the Levant. He was in the bow, seemingly attending to a problem in the rigging. He cupped his hands and called out to us.

  'Your English Parliament has voted to recall your king, Matthias. General Monck has won Cromwell's old army over to it, and General Montagu brings his navy to Scheveningen to take King Charles over. You have a country and a home again, my brother.' Thus ended England's eleven-year interregnum, and we exiles who had thronged every town of the Netherlands and Spanish Flanders could rejoice at our own, very personal, restorations.

  Two years later, at table in Ravensden Abbey, the same Cornelis van der Eide nodded slowly. I continued, 'Even if the king had enough Cavalier officers for all his ships, most of them would be men like me, young gentleman captains who barely know one end of a ship from the other. If he wants experience, he has to turn to Noll Cromwell's men, who are now Monck's and Montagu's. You know better than I how good some of them are, brother.'