Cutthroats of the Coast

Chapter 12 - Coffee, Gossip and Lies

“Oh my goodness, that is good!”  I said an hour later, savouring the last dregs from my cup. 

Mr Jones, Mr Ramsbottom and I sat in the cool offices beneath the castle, drinking hot coffee, sweet and strong.   I had partaken of this divine beverage at the Queen’s Lane Coffee House, whilst at Oxford, and before I had discovered liquor.  It never failed to banish melancholy for me.  Its stimulating kiss could also allay the dreams of Bacchus.  We had been entertained by an old friend of mine, who had made exceptionally civil small talk regarding London: the theatres, the rivalries of the King’s mistresses – that of Nell Gwynn and Louise de Kérouaille being the most amusing – Mr Wren’s churches and the dire state of Saint Paul’s. 

Behind the broad expanse of an oaken desk before us, this old friend lounged, toying with the handle of his handsome, pewter coffee pot.  The black-coated gentleman who had met us in the castle courtyard was none other than Nathaniel Broadbank, a former fellow student from Trinity.  We had been hurried off the courtyard and offered coffee in his study, mainly in order to get me into a state where I would be lucid. 

I looked at my old friend.  Fair hair and milk white skin appeared not to be the best thing to have in a hot climate like Tangier.  Unpleasant looking red blotches dotted his plump face and his nose was peeling from the effect of the sun.  Nathaniel was the son of one of Lord Fairfax’s colonels.  A fashionable fellow in his days at Trinity yet was somewhat more grim looking than I remembered.  Mind you, the last time I had seen him, a whore had been riding his beribboned cock like a jockey at Newmarket and he had not looked too unhappy about it.  

Unlike now. 

Nathaniel was not smiling.  “Forgive me gentlemen, Matthew is an old friend.  I must needs speak to him of his family,” he said at last to Ramsbottom and Jones. 

Jones surreptitiously kicked Ramsbottom, his leg hidden by the desk, when it became plain that Ramsbottom had not yet fully recovered enough to play his part as captain, without a reminder.  

“Ow!  Er!” the idiot began.  “Quite so.  Yes, of course.”  Ramsbottom inclined his head, his face flushing whilst he rubbed his calf.  It was quite possible that the worst idea of this whole enterprise was the idea that Ramsbottom could convince anyone that he was born to command. 

Apparently, Nathaniel was acquainted with the verbosity and articulation of the English gentry and took this as permission to carry on.  “Your father has been most agitated, Matthew.” 

“He is a man inclined to passion, to be sure.” 

“More than passion.  He has raged at you, Matthew.  I waited on him, when I was in London last.  He was not inclined to see old friends of yours from the University.  His man…” 

“Fletcher?  That god-cursed doxy?” 

“Yes, Mr Fletcher received me, which I could only regard as a slight.  I am not accustomed to waiting on stewards and serving men, Matthew.  It is only for my love of you that I persevered,” Nathaniel said, grimacing at the memory.   “Fletcher took me to your father’s study yet insisted I wait without.  Your father would not see me yet his man scurried from this waiting room into the study to impart your father’s words to me.  He was most intemperate!  I had to remind him of who my father was.” 

“Well that’s my father all over, Nathaniel.  He has never given one fig for another person’s feelings.  He always played both sides during the war between King and Parliament.  Did you know, when he was for Cromwell he denounced his neighbours as royalists to seize their lands?”  I spoke with great warmth, the coffee lending my tongue such vigour that it almost seemed too large for my mouth.  There is nothing like a humiliating family secret to stoke the fires of ire.