‘Perhaps later,’ Hester said.
Inside the hour, true to his word, Alexander Norman came strolling down the street, stopping for a chat with his neighbour who had a small goldsmith’s shop, and then opened his front door and stepped inside. At once his air of leisured cheerfulness deserted him.
‘It’s bad news,’ he said, checking that the parlour door was closed behind him. ‘Lady d’Aubigny took sanctuary in the French Embassy under the pretext that her husband’s family is French. But Parliament has ordered that the French hand her over and they have done so. She’ll be tried for treason, she was carrying the king’s Commission of Array. She was trying to raise an army in the very City itself.’
‘The French ambassador handed over an English lady of the king’s party to Parliament?’ Hester demanded, incredulously.
‘Yes,’ Alexander said, looking grave. ‘Perhaps His Majesty has fewer friends in Paris than he thinks. Perhaps the French are preparing to deal with Parliament direct.’
Hester found she was standing by her chair, as if ready to run. She forced herself to sit down and to start breathing normally. ‘And what else?’
‘Edmund Waller, who passes for the brains behind this brainless scheme, was taken up and is singing like a blinded thrush,’ Alexander said. ‘He is naming everyone he spoke to, in the hopes of escaping Tower Hill and the block.’
‘Would he have my name?’ Hester asked quietly. She found her lips were numb and she could not speak clearly.
‘I can’t tell,’ Alexander said. ‘I didn’t want to ask too detailed questions for fear of attracting attention. We can hope that your man got clear away, and that he was too small a link in the chain to connect you to the plot.’
‘As long as he was not captured on Father’s horse,’ Frances pointed out.
‘If I said it was me who gave him the horse …’ Johnnie suggested. ‘I could say that it was me and that I was a royalist. They wouldn’t execute me, would they? I’m not ten yet. They’d give me a whipping and I don’t mind that. I’d get the blame and you’d be all right.’
Hester drew him towards her and kissed his smooth fair head. ‘I don’t want you involved in this, whatever the risks.’ She looked up at Alexander Norman. ‘Should I stay? Or go?’
He bit his upper lip with his teeth. ‘It’s the devil’s own decision,’ he said. ‘I think you should go. We gain nothing from you being here and we risk everything. If your man is captured and he follows the example of his betters he will volunteer information and he is bound to name you. Even if he goes free then the king’s men are so indiscreet that your name might still be mentioned. Go to Oatlands and stay in John’s house in the garden for a week. I’ll send you a message if it’s all clear and you can come home again.’
‘Oatlands?’ Johnnie demanded. ‘With Prince Rupert?’
‘Yes, he’s said to be quartered there,’ Alexander Norman said. ‘At least you’ll be safe from Parliament while he is there.’
‘Oatlands!’ Johnnie exulted. ‘Prince Rupert! I’ll have to go with you. To defend you.’
Frances was about to say ‘I’ll come too’, but she hesitated and looked towards Alexander Norman. ‘Should I?’
‘You’ll all go,’ he said. ‘You’re safer there than anywhere if Rupert is still there. Parliament can’t arrest you there, you’ll be under royalist protection; and when you come home we can say you were only doing John’s work on the gardens.’
Frances was about to argue, but then she held her peace.
‘You could go now,’ Alexander said. He led the way out of the room to the narrow hall.
Hester hung back and looked at her beautiful stepdaughter. ‘Did you not want the risk of being with me?’ she asked. ‘I would understand if you didn’t want to come to Oatlands. You can go to your grandparents if you wish, Frances.’
‘Oh no!’ Frances cried out, and suddenly she was a girl again. ‘Mother! Oh no! Whatever risks you were taking I should want to be with you. I’d never leave you alone to face danger! I was just thinking that perhaps Uncle Norman could come with us. I’d feel so much safer if he was with us.’
‘The safest way is for him to be here, gathering news, and for us to be tucked out of the way in the country,’ Hester said. ‘And when it is all quiet again we can go home. I don’t like to leave the rarities and the gardens.’
‘In case Father comes home this month?’ Johnnie asked.
Hester managed a smile. ‘In case Father comes home this month,’ she agreed.
Oatlands Palace was beautiful in early summer. The garden was showing signs of neglect and most of the rooms of the house were shut up. There was a regiment of soldiers occupying the main hall and the regimental cooks working in the kitchens. The cavalry’s horses were stabled in the old royal stables and there was constant drilling and training and parading over John’s precious turf at the front of the palace. Prince Rupert was only rarely with his troops. Half the time he was at Oxford with the court, arguing against the negotiations for peace, bolstering up the king’s erratic determination to conquer the Parliament and not negotiate with them. The royalist cavalry troops paid no attention to the silkworm house nor to the gardener’s house next door to it. The commander saw Hester when he was walking in the gardens and Hester mentioned that since her husband was still nominally gardener to the palace she had thought it her duty to make sure that the gardens were not suffering too badly.
‘Very commendable,’ he said. ‘What needs doing?’
‘The grass wants mowing,’ Hester said. ‘And the knot garden needs weeding and trimming. The roses should have been pruned in winter, it’s too late now, and the fruit trees.’
He nodded. ‘These are not the times for gardening,’ he said flatly. ‘You do what you can and I shall see that you are paid for your time.’
‘Thank you,’ Hester said.
‘Who’s the pretty maid?’ he asked abruptly.
‘My stepdaughter.’
‘Keep her out of the way of the men,’ he said.
‘She’ll stay by me,’ Hester said. ‘Can she walk in the gardens?’
‘Yes. But not near the house.’
Hester dipped a little curtsey.
He was about to walk away but he hesitated. ‘I visited the Ark once,’ he said. ‘When I was little older than your lad. The old Mr Tradescant showed me around himself. It was the most wonderful place I had ever been. A palace of curiosities. I could hardly believe the things I saw. A mermaid, and the jaw of a whale!’
Hester smiled. ‘We still have them,’ she said. ‘You are very welcome to visit us again when you come to London. You may come as our guest. I should be glad to show you the new things too.’
The commander shook his head. ‘It seems extraordinary to me that while I am fighting for the king against his own deluded people that you are still collecting mice skins and glassware and tiny toys.’
‘For one thing there is nothing else for me to do,’ Hester said tartly. ‘My husband left the rarities and the garden and the children in my care. A woman should do her duty, whatever else may be happening.’
He nodded his approval of that.
‘And when it is all over, when it is finished, then the men who have been fighting will want to go home to their houses and their gardens,’ Hester said more gently. ‘And then it will be a great joy to them to find rare and beautiful things have survived the war, and that there are strange and lovely plants to grow, and tulips are as bright and fiery as ever, and the chestnut trees are as rich and as green as ever they were.’
There was a little silence, and then he bowed low and took her hand and kissed it. ‘You are keeping a little piece of England safe for us,’ he said. ‘Pray God we all come safely home to it at the end of all this.’
‘Amen,’ Hester said, thinking of John so far away, and of the war going on for so long, and of the young men who came to the Ark to order trees only for their heirs to grow. ‘Amen.’
Hester found a youth who had
so far avoided both the excitement of the war and the recruiting officers to mow the courts around Oatlands under her supervision, and then weed the gravel of the knot garden. Little could be done with the kitchen garden except to leave it to grow what vegetables and fruit could struggle through the weeds. But judging from the blossom which drifted like snow in the corners of the walled garden there would be a fine show of fruit, especially plums and apples which thrived on neglect.
In the silkworm house the shelves were full of dusty little corpses. When the king and queen had left the court and abandoned the old life, the boiler had gone out and all the worms had died. Hester, with her instinctive hatred of waste, cleaned out the trays and swept the floor with a bustling irritation against a queen who could command such things into being, and then forget them completely. Every day Hester and Frances hitched up their skirts, rolled up their sleeves and worked in the gardens, noting the positions of the tulips which should be lifted in autumn, tying in climbing plants to the bowers and arbours, and weeding, weeding, weeding: the white gravel of the stone gardens, the drive, the terrace, the stone-flagged arbours. Johnnie put himself in charge of the watercourses and drained and scrubbed them, coming home at dusk wet through with triumphant tales of streams running clean, and cracks in the watercourses repaired with his own sticky mixture of clay and white chalk.
In the afternoons he was allowed to watch the cavalry drilling, practising turning and wheeling at a shouted order, and once he saw Prince Rupert himself on his huge horse with his poodle held over his saddlebow and his dark hair in a curled mane over his shoulders. Johnnie came home full of joy at the sight of the handsome prince. Prince Rupert had seen him and smiled at him and Johnnie had asked if he could serve in his regiment as soon as he was old enough and could find another horse.
‘You didn’t say anything about the cavalier who took Father’s horse?’ Hester asked quickly.
At once all the boyish wildness drained from his face and he looked cautious. ‘Of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not a child.’
Hester had to stop herself from drawing him on to her knee and taking him in her arms. ‘Of course you’re not,’ she said. ‘But we must all mind our tongues in these dangerous days.’
She smiled to reassure him that she was not afraid; but at night, in all the long dark nights, Hester remembered that she was in exile from her home and in danger of her life, and sometimes she feared that while they were safely hidden at Oatlands the other army, who were at least as well-armed and perhaps as well-trained as this one, might march on the little house at Lambeth and destroy it with all the treasures and all the plants as a nest of treason.
She could get neither news nor gossip. The soldiers stationed at Oatlands Palace knew nothing more than they would get their marching orders any day, and Hester was too fearful to go into Weybridge for news. She had to wait for a message from Alexander Norman. In the third week of June he came himself.
Frances saw him first. She and Hester were grubbing in the flower beds of the queen’s court, lifting the early tulips and putting the precious bulbs into sacks to take away.
‘Look!’ Frances exclaimed, and in the next moment she was up and running like a child with her arms outstretched to him.
For a moment he hesitated and then he spread his arms to her and folded her tight. Over her light brown head his eyes met Hester’s and he gave her a small apologetic smile. Frances pulled back to see his face but did not unclasp her hands from their grip around his back. ‘Are we safe?’ she demanded urgently.
‘Praise God, yes,’ he said.
Hester felt her knees go weak and sank down on a stone seat. For a moment she could not speak. Then she asked: ‘The man got safe home to Oxford?’
‘And sent your mare back with a hidden note in the saddle which apologised for seizing the animal at swordpoint. If anyone does inquire we can show them the note which will serve as a strong argument in your defence. We have been lucky indeed.’
Hester shut her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. ‘I have been more afraid than I was ready to admit.’
‘And I,’ Alexander Norman said with a gleam. ‘I have been trembling in my boots for the last fortnight.’
‘I knew we’d be safe,’ Frances said. ‘I knew you would keep us safe, Uncle Norman.’
‘What other news?’ Hester asked.
‘Waller, who started the whole plot, is the only one to get off scot-free,’ Alexander said, his voice low. ‘Every time the king uses such weak reeds as this, he falls in the estimation of every right-thinking person. Waller confessed everything, he named everyone he had spoken to and thanks to his ready tongue two men have been hanged for conspiracy, though they did far less than him, and at his bidding. And there will be more to die.’
Hester shook her head in disapproval.
‘Waller himself is fined and imprisoned, but the news of his treachery and of his conspiracy has driven the Parliament men closer together. There’s a new oath of loyalty and they’re all eager to make close alliance with the House of Lords and with the Scots. The king has done his cause the worst damage he could have done – he has frightened his enemies into friendship with each other, and not advanced himself a single step. And any man of judgement must despise Waller, and his master too.’
Hester rose from the seat. ‘So I can go home?’
‘Yes. I called in at Lambeth on my way upstream so that I could tell you if things were well there. Joseph tells me that the garden is beautiful and the house has been closed and kept safe. Everything is ready for your return.’
Frances clapped her hands. ‘Let’s go!’ she said. ‘I’d rather weed my own garden than the king’s any day!’
Alexander took her hands and turned them palms upwards. They were filthy from lifting the bulbs and her fingernails were broken. ‘You’ll never be a lady with hands like these,’ he said. ‘You should wear gloves.’
‘Oh phoo,’ Frances said, pulling her hands away. ‘I don’t care about being a lady. I’m a working woman like Mother.’
‘Well you’ll never sew silk with callused hands,’ Alexander replied. ‘So I shall never bring you ribbons again.’
She knew him too well to fear his threats. ‘Then I shall never dance for you or sing to you or speak to you kindly,’ she said.
‘Enough,’ Hester remarked. ‘There’s enough warfare in the kingdom without it starting at home. We’ll finish lifting these tulips and then we’ll pack and go home. I am longing to sleep in my own bed again.’
Winter 1643, Virginia
John had not thought it possible that he could become one of the Powhatan but by the autumn he felt as if his London life was left far behind him. There was so much for him to learn that every day was completely absorbing. He was all but fluent in the language – an easy task since once he was adopted into the People not one of them would speak English to him. Within weeks he was speaking nothing but Powhatan, and within months he was thinking in their rich natural imagery. It was not just the language he had to master, but their very way of thinking, of being. He had to learn the pride of a man whose land has been directly given to him, as a favour from the Great Hare. He had to learn the joy of providing food for his family, and for his village to eat. He had to learn the tiny pleasures of family and village life, the easy jokes, the sudden flare-ups of irritation, the appeal of gossip, the danger of making mischief, the delight of Suckahanna’s growing boy and baby, and the dark, constant pleasure of the coming of the night.
They never talked when they made love. They never spoke of it. With his first wife, Jane, it had been that some things were not to be mentioned because they were secret, almost shameful; but with Suckahanna the pleasures of the sleeping platform where anything was possible, where any pleasure might be sought and any sensation given, were pleasures of the darkness and silence. In the daytime and during speech they were in abeyance, waiting for the darkness that would come again.
John had thought in the first months of h
is marriage that he would go insane, waiting for the sun to set and the children to sleep so that he could take Suckahanna into his arms. Then he was glad that the autumn season made the nights longer, and that the cold weather drove the families of the village indoors earlier and earlier. The children would be rolled together in a thick rug on their sleeping platform, the fire at the centre of the house would glow with a warm light and fill the little house with hot smoke, and in the darkness and warmth Suckahanna would enfold him and hold him in her mouth, in her body, until he ached with the urgency of his desire and then finally found the rush and release of his passion, as she closed her eyes and slid into her own joy.
Even on the coldest days the braves went hunting. When the snow was thick on the ground they wore thicker moccasins on their bare feet and buckskin jerkins for warmth. They would laugh at John when they came home if his lips were blue with cold. They threatened to send him stalking stripped naked since his white skin blended so well with the snow.
Attone had John’s old gun but there was no powder for it. However, he insisted on carrying it on every hunt, and after he had felled a wild goose or duck with a superbly placed arrow and it came spiralling to earth, he would pull the gun from the deerskin holster he had made to carry it on his back, sight the falling bird and solemnly remark ‘Bang.’
‘Good shot, sir!’ John would say in English, the words awkward and alien on his tongue.
And Attone would turn and beam. ‘Good shot,’ he would confirm.
Attone was at John’s side for all of the autumn hunts, prompting, reminding, explaining. But all of the Powhatan people were quick to teach John the things he needed to know to live among them. That ceremony of adoption and marriage in one had been all they needed. John was one of the People.
He shared their dangers as well as their pleasures. As autumn turned into winter the stores grew low and the people began to go hungry. The food was set aside for the strongest small children and for the braves on the hunting parties. Old people, the weak, and the sickly accepted that when there was scarcity, the food had to go to those most likely to survive. John offered his portion to Musses but she laughed in his face.