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Baby John looked up and wiped his milky moustache on his sleeve.

  ‘Use your napkin,’ Hester corrected him.

  Baby John grinned. ‘I shall go to Oatrands,’ he said firmly. ‘Pranting and pranning and pruning. I shall go.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Hester said, and she emphasised the correct pronunciation: ‘Planting and planning and pruning are most important.’

  Baby John nodded with dignity. ‘Now I shall go and look at my warities.’

  ‘Can I take the money from the visitors?’ Frances asked.

  Hester glanced at the clock standing in the corner of the room. It was not yet nine. ‘They won’t come for another hour or so,’ she said. ‘You can fetch your school work, both of you, for an hour, and then you can work in the rarities room.’

  ‘Oh, Hester!’ Frances complained.

  Hester shook her head and started to pile up the empty porridge bowls and the spoons. ‘Books first,’ she said. ‘And, Baby John, I want to see all our names written fair in your copybook.’

  ‘And then I will go pranting,’ he said.

  Hester packed John’s clothes for him and added a few jars of bottled summer fruit to the hamper which would follow him by wagon. She was up early on the day of his departure to see him ride away from the Ark.

  ‘You had no need to rise,’ John said awkwardly.

  ‘Of course I had need. I am your wife.’

  He turned and tightened the girth on his big bay cob to avoid speaking. They were both aware that since the first night they had not made love, and now he was going away for an indefinite period.

  ‘Please take care at court,’ Hester said gently. ‘These are difficult times for men of principle.’

  ‘I must say what I believe if I am asked,’ John said. ‘I don’t venture it, but I won’t deny it.’

  She hesitated. ‘You need not deny your beliefs but you could say nothing and avoid the topic altogether,’ she suggested. ‘The queen especially is touchy about her religion. She holds to her Papist faith, and the king inclines more and more to her. And now that he is trying to impose Archbishop Laud’s prayer book on Scotland, this is not a time for any Independent thinker; be he Baptist or Presbyterian.’

  ‘You wish to advise me?’ he asked with a hint of warning in his voice which reminded her that a wife was always in second place to a man.

  ‘I know the court,’ she said steadily. ‘I spent my girlhood there. My uncle is an official painter there, still. I have half a dozen cousins and friends who write to me. I do know things, husband. I know that it is no place for a man who thinks for himself.’

  ‘They’re hardly likely to care what their gardener thinks,’ John scoffed. ‘An undergardener at that. I’ve not even been appointed to my father’s post, yet.’

  She hesitated. ‘They care so much that they threw Archie the jester out with his jacket pulled over his head for merely joking about Archbishop Laud; and Archie was the queen’s great favourite. They certainly care what you think. They are taking it upon themselves to care what every single man, woman, and child thinks. That’s what the very quarrel is all about. About what every individual thinks in his private heart. That’s why every single Scotsman has to sign his own covenant with the king and swear to use the Archbishop’s prayer book. They care precisely what every single man thinks.’ She paused. ‘They may indeed question you, John; and you have to have an answer ready that will satisfy them.’

  ‘I have a right to speak to my God in my own way!’ John insisted stubbornly. ‘I don’t need to recite by rote, I am not a child. I don’t need a priest to dictate my prayers. I certainly don’t need a bishop puffed up with pride and wealth to tell me what I think. I can speak to God direct when I am planting His seeds in the garden and picking His fruit from His trees. And He speaks to me then. And I honour Him then.

  ‘I use the prayer book well enough – but I don’t believe that those are the only words that God hears. And I don’t believe that the only men God attends are bishops wrapped up in surplices, and I don’t believe that God made Charles king, and that service to the king is one and the same as service to God. And Jane –’ He broke off, suddenly aware that he should not speak to his new wife of his constant continuing love for her predecessor.

  ‘Go on,’ Hester said.

  ‘Jane’s faith never wavered, not even when she was dying in pain,’ John said. ‘She would never have denied her belief that God spoke simple and clear to her and she could speak to Him. She would have died for that belief, if she had been called to do so. And for her sake, if for nothing else, I will not deny my faith.’

  ‘And what about her children?’ Hester asked. ‘D’you think she would want you to die for her faith and leave her children orphans?’

  John checked. ‘It won’t come to that.’

  ‘When I was at Oatlands only six months ago, the talk was all about each man’s faith and how far each man would go. If the king insists on the Scots following the prayer book he is bound to insist on it in England too. If he goes to war with the Scots to make them do as he bids, and some say he might do that, who can doubt that he will do the same in England?’

  John shook his head. ‘This is nothing,’ he said. ‘Nonsense and heartache about nothing.’

  ‘It is not nothing. I am warning you,’ Hester said steadily. ‘No-one knows how far the king will go when he has to protect the queen and her faith, and to conceal his own backsliding towards popery. No-one knows how far he will go to make everyone conform to the same church. He has taken it into his head that one church will make one nation, and that he can hold one nation in the palm of his hand and govern without a word to anyone. If you insist on your faith at the same time as the king is insisting on his, you cannot say what trouble you might be running towards.’

  John thought for a moment and then he nodded. ‘You may be right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘You are a powerfully cautious woman, Hester.’

  ‘You have given me a task and I shall do it,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘You have given me the task of bringing up your children and being a wife to you. I have no wish to be a widow. I have no wish to bring up orphans.’

  ‘But I will not compromise my faith,’ he warned her.

  ‘Just don’t flaunt it.’

  The horse was ready. John tied his cape tightly at the neck and set his hat on his head. He paused; he did not know how he should say farewell to this new, common-sense wife of his. To his surprise she put out her hand, as a man would do, and shook his hand as if she were his friend.

  John felt oddly warmed by the frankness of the gesture. He smiled at her, led the horse over to the mounting block and got up into the saddle.

  ‘I don’t know what state the gardens will be in,’ he remarked.

  ‘For sure, they will appoint you in your father’s place when you are back at court,’ Hester said. ‘It was only your absence which made them delay. It is out of sight, at once forgotten with them. When you return they will insist on your service again.’

  He nodded. ‘I hope they have not mistook my orders while I was gone. If you leave a garden for a season it slips back a year.’

  Hester stepped forward and patted the horse’s neck. ‘The children will miss you,’ she said. ‘May I tell them when you will be home?’

  ‘By November,’ he promised.

  She stepped back from the horse’s head and let him go. He smiled at her as he passed out of the stable yard and round the path which led to the gate. As he rode out he had a sudden sense of joyful freedom – that he could ride away from his home or ride back to it and that everything would be managed without him. This was his father’s last gift to him – his father who had also married a woman who could manage well in his absence. John turned in his saddle and waved at Hester who was still standing at the corner of the yard where she could look after him.

  John waved his whip and turned the horse towards Lambeth and the ferry. Hester watched him go and then turned back to the house.

  The court was due at O