She turned her face away for a moment, and then quietly put her spindle down. ‘You will need your travelling cape, and your riding breeches,’ she said and went to climb the little stair to their bed chamber.
‘He wants me!’ Tradescant repeated exultantly. ‘He sent for me! All the way from France!’
Elizabeth turned back to look at him and for a moment he could not understand her expression. She was looking at him with regret, with a strange inexplicable pity.
‘This is what I have been waiting for!’ he said. But at once the words sounded lame. ‘At last!’
‘I know you have been waiting for him to whistle and for you to run,’ she said gently. ‘And I will pray that he does not lead you down dark pathways.’
‘He is leading me to the court of France!’ John exclaimed. ‘To the heart of Paris itself to bring home the new Queen of England!’
‘To a Papist court and a Papist queen,’ Elizabeth said steadily. ‘I will pray for your deliverance night and day, husband. Last time you went to court you came home sickened to your soul.’
John swore under his breath and flung himself out of the cottage to wait on the road for his wife to pack his bag. So when they said farewell he did not take her in his arms but merely nodded his head to her. ‘I bid you farewell,’ he said. ‘I cannot say when I shall return.’
‘When he has finished with you,’ she said simply.
John flinched at the words. ‘I am his servant, as he is the king’s,’ he said. ‘Duty to him is an honour as well as my task.’
‘Indeed, I hope his service always is an honour,’ she said. ‘And that he never asks anything of you that you should not perform.’
John took her hand and kissed her lightly, coldly, on the forehead. ‘Of course not,’ he said irritably. The cart, packed with the duke’s goods and drawn by two good horses, with his lordship’s two best hunters tossing their heads at being tied on behind, clattered down the lane. John hailed it and swung up on the seat beside the driver. When he looked down on her he thought his wife seemed very small, but as indomitable as she had been the day of their engagement twenty-four years ago.
‘God bless you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I shall come home as soon as I have done my duty.’
She nodded, still grave. ‘J and I will be waiting for you,’ she said. The cart rolled forward, she turned and watched it go. ‘As we always are.’
When J came in for his supper she sent him back out to the pump to wash his hands again. He came in wiping his palms on his smock, leaving muddy stains.
‘Look at you!’ Elizabeth exclaimed without heat.
‘It’s clean earth,’ he defended himself. ‘And I’ve never seen my father’s hands without grimy calluses.’
Elizabeth brought bread and meat broth to the table.
‘Chicken broth again?’ J asked without resentment.
‘Mutton,’ she said. ‘Mrs Giddings killed a sheep and sold me the lights and a leg. We’ll have a roast tomorrow.’
‘Where’s father?’
She let him break bread and take a spoonful of soup before she answered. ‘Gone to France after my lord Buckingham.’
He dropped his spoon back in his bowl. ‘Gone where?’ he asked incredulously.
‘I’d have thought you’d have heard.’
He shook his head. ‘I was over at the far side of the estate all day, with the game birds. I heard nothing.’
‘The duke sent for him, wanted him to take some clothes, and some playthings for the French princess.’
‘And he went?’
She met his angry glare. ‘Of course, J my boy. Of course he went.’
‘He runs after the duke as if he were a dog!’ J burst out.
Elizabeth shot a fierce look at him. ‘You remember your duty!’ she hissed.
J dropped his gaze to the table, and fought for control. ‘I miss him,’ he said quietly. ‘When he is not there then people look to me to tell them what to do. Because I am his son they assume that I know things, and I don’t know them. And the lads in the stable tease me when he is not there. They mock me behind my back and call me names. They say things about him and the duke which are not fit to be repeated.’
‘He won’t be long,’ Elizabeth said without conviction.
‘You cannot know that.’
‘I know he will come as soon as he can.’
‘You know he will come when the duke has finished with him, and not a moment sooner. Besides, he loves travelling, if he gets the chance he will be off around Europe again. Did he leave you with an address where we can reach him?’
‘No.’
‘Or money?’
‘No.’
J sighed heavily and spooned broth. When his bowl was empty he took the last piece of bread and wiped it carefully around, mopping up the gravy. ‘So at the end of the month I shall have to go to the almoner for his wages and he will swear they will be paid to him in Paris, and we will have to make do on my money until he returns.’
‘We can manage,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I have some put by, and he will make it up when he gets back.’
J knew how to bait his mother. ‘And he will be drinking and dining and living at a Papist court. I doubt that there will be any church where he can say his prayers. He will come home crossing himself and needing a priest to pray for him.’
She went white at that. ‘He will not,’ she said faintly.
‘They say Buckingham himself is inclining that way,’ J went on. ‘His mother is turned Papist, or witch, or something.’
Elizabeth dropped her head and was silent for a moment. ‘Our Lord will keep him safe,’ she said. ‘And he is a godly man. He will come home safe, to his home, to his faith.’
J tired of the sport of teasing his mother’s piety. ‘When I am a man I shall call no man master,’ he asserted.
She smiled at him. ‘Then you will have to earn more money than your father has ever done! Every man has his better, every dog a master.’
‘I shall never follow a man as my father follows the duke,’ J said boldly. ‘Not the King of England himself. I shall work for my own good, I shall go on my own travels. I shall not be ordered to one place and then summoned away.’
Elizabeth put out her hand in a rare gesture of tenderness and touched his cheek. ‘I hope you will live in a country where great men do not exercise their power in such a way,’ she said. It was the closest he had ever heard her come to any sort of radical thought. ‘I hope you will live in a country where great men remember their duty to the poor, and to their servants. But we do not live in such a world yet, my J. You have to choose a master and become his man and do his bidding. There is no-one who does not serve another, whether you’re the lowest ploughboy or the greatest squire. There is always another above you.’
Instinctively he lowered his voice. ‘England will have to change,’ he said softly. ‘The lowest ploughboy is questioning if his master has a God-given right to rule over him. The lowest ploughboy has a soul which is as welcome in heaven as the greatest squire. The Bible says that the first shall become last. That’s not the promise that nothing can ever change.’
‘Hush,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Time enough to speak like that when things have changed, if they ever do.’
‘Things are changing now,’ J insisted. ‘This king will have to deal with the people of the country. He will have to listen to Parliament. He cannot cheat on honest, good men, as his father did. We are tired of paying for a court which shows us nothing but luxury and sin. We will not be allied to Papists, we will not be brothers to heretics!’
She shook her head, but she did not stop him.
‘At New Hall there is a man who knows another man who says that there should be a petition against the king that should tell him his duties. That he cannot levy taxes without calling a parliament. That he must listen to his advisers in Parliament. That the duke should not rule over everything and scrape all the wealth into his own pocket. That orphans and widows should have the protection
of the Crown, so that a man can die in peace and know that his estate will be well managed and not farmed by the duke for his own good.’
‘Are there many that think this?’ Her whisper was a thread of sound.
‘He says so.’
Her eyes were wide. ‘Does any say so in your father’s hearing?’
J shook his head. ‘Father is known as the duke’s man through and through. But there are many, even in the duke’s own service, who know that the mood of the country is turning against the duke. They blame him for everything that goes wrong, from this hot weather to the plague.’
‘What will become of us if the duke should fall?’ she asked.
J’s young face was determined. ‘We would survive,’ he said. ‘Even if the country never wanted another duke, it would always need gardeners. I should always find work and there will always be a home for you with me. But what would become of my father? He’s not just the duke’s gardener – he is his vassal. If the duke fails then I think father’s heart will break.’
May 1625
John met his master in Paris as he had been ordered. He waited for him in the black and white marble hall of the great house until the double doors swung open and the duke was framed in the bright Paris sunlight. He was wearing diamonds in his hat, on his finely embroidered doublet. His cape was hemmed with brilliants which John hoped very much were glass but feared were also diamonds. He sparkled in the spring sunshine like the new leaves on a silver birch tree.
‘My John!’ he exclaimed with delight. ‘And have you brought all my clothes? I am reduced to rags!’
John found he was beaming with delight at the sight of his master. ‘So I see, my lord. I was afraid that I would find you looking very poor and mean. I have brought everything and your coach and six horses is coming behind me.’
Buckingham grasped him by the shoulder. ‘I knew you would do it for me,’ he said. ‘I would trust no other. How are things at New Hall?’
‘Everything is well,’ John told him. ‘The garden is looking well, your water terrace is working and looks lovely. Your wife and mother are at New Hall and are both well.’
‘Oh yes, gardens,’ the duke said. ‘You must meet the gardeners to the French court, you will be impressed with what they do here. The queen will give me a note for you to introduce yourself to them.’ He bent towards John and spoke softly in his ear. ‘The queen would give me a good deal more too, if I asked for it, I think!’
John found he was smiling at the shameless vanity of the man. ‘I know the Robins, but I shall be pleased to see them again. And you have been amusing yourself.’
Buckingham kissed his fingertips like a Frenchman acknowledging beauty. ‘I have been in paradise,’ he said. ‘And you shall come with me and we shall see the palace gardens together. Come, John, I shall change my clothes and I shall take you around the city. It’s very fair and very joyful, and the women are as easy as mares in heat. It’s a perfect town for me!’
John chuckled unwillingly. ‘My wife would be most distressed. I will go and see the gardens but I cannot go visiting women.’
Buckingham put his arm around Tradescant’s shoulders and hugged him tight. ‘You shall be my conscience then,’ he said. ‘And keep me on the straight and narrow way.’
It could not be done. The Archangel Gabriel with a flaming sword could not have kept the Duke of Buckingham on the straight and narrow way in Paris in 1625. The French court was besotted with the English, a new prince on the throne, a French princess as his chosen bride, and the handsomest man in Europe at court to fetch her to her new home. Crowds of women gathered outside Buckingham’s hôtel just to see him come and go, and to admire the astounding sight of his carriage and six, and the jewels and his clothes and his hat, the ‘bonnet d’anglais’ which was copied by a hundred hatters as soon as they glimpsed it.
The queen herself blushed when he came near her, and watched him from behind her fan if he so much as spoke to another woman, and little Princess Henrietta Maria stammered when he was in the room and forgot what little English she knew. The whole of France was in love with him, the whole of Paris adored him. And Buckingham, smiling, laughing, fêted everywhere he went, passed through adoring crowds as if he were the king himself and not a mere ambassador: the bridegroom himself and not a proxy.
John was weary of Buckingham’s ceaseless round of parties within days.
‘Keep up, John,’ Buckingham threw over his shoulder. ‘We are going to a masked ball tonight.’
‘As you wish,’ John said.
Buckingham turned and laughed at John’s stoical expression. ‘Have you no assignations? No dances promised?’
‘I’m a married man,’ John said. ‘As you are, my lord.’ He paused for Buckingham’s crack of laughter. ‘But I will attend you there and wait for you as long as you wish, my lord.’
Buckingham rested his hand on Tradescant’s shoulder. ‘No, I have a dozen men who can wait on me, and only one who loves me like a brother. I shan’t waste your love and loyalty on watching me dancing. What would you like to do most?’
Tradescant thought. ‘I’ve seen some plants which would look very well at New Hall,’ he said cautiously. ‘If you could spare me, I shall visit the Robins’ garden to order the plants and see them packed, and then they could come home with us when we leave.’
Buckingham thought, his head on one side. ‘I think we can do better than that.’ He reached into the deep pocket of his coat and pulled out a purse. ‘D’you know what this is?’
‘Money?’
‘Better than that. A bribe. An enormous bribe, from Richelieu or his agents.’
John looked at the purse as if it were a venomous snake. ‘Do you want me to return it?’
Buckingham threw back his head and laughed. ‘John! My John! No! I want you to spend it!’
‘French money? What do they want for it?’
‘My friendship, my advice to the king, my support of the little princess. Take it!’
Still John hesitated. ‘But what if you need to warn the king against them? What if things change?’
‘Who’s our worst enemy? Worst enemy of the faith? Greatest danger to the freedom of our Protestant brothers in Europe?’
‘The Spanish,’ John said slowly.
‘So we befriend the French to make an alliance against the Spanish,’ Buckingham said simply. ‘And if they want to give me a fortune for doing what I would be doing anyway – then they may!’
‘But what if it all changes?’ John asked. ‘What if the Spanish make an alliance with the French? Or the French turn against us?’
Buckingham tossed the purse in the air and caught it again. It fell as if it were indeed very heavy. ‘Then the money is spent and I have done my country the service of draining the coffers of our enemy. Here! Catch!’ He threw the purse to John, and John caught it as a reflex action before he could stop himself.
‘Take it to Amsterdam,’ Buckingham said, as skilfully tempting as a serpent in Eden. ‘Take it to Amsterdam, and buy tulips, my John.’
He could have said nothing which would have worked more powerfully on Tradescant. Unaware of the action, John hefted the purse in his hand, guessing at the weight. ‘They are going at a terrible price,’ he said. ‘The market has gone mad for tulips. Everyone is buying, everyone is speculating in them. Men who have never left their money counters are buying the names of tulips on scraps of paper, they never even see the flower. I can’t be sure how many bulbs I could get, even with this money.’
‘Go,’ Buckingham commanded. He flung himself into a chair and swung his long legs over the arm. He looked at Tradescant with his teasing smile. ‘You know you are longing for them, my John. Go and look at the tulip fields and buy as many as you want. There’s that purse, and another to follow. Bring me a couple of bulbs back and we will put them in a pot, set ourselves up as burghers and grow rich.’
‘The Semper Augusta is scarlet and white,’ John said. ‘I’ve seen a painting of it. The colour
is most beautifully broken, and it has a most wonderful shape, the true tulip cup shape but with tiny points on each petal, so each petal stands a little proud from the others. And long curvy leaves …’
‘In faith! This is love!’ Buckingham mocked. ‘This is true love, John I’ve never seen you so moved.’
Tradescant smiled. ‘There’s never been a more perfect flower. It’s the best there is. There’s nothing better. And there’s never been one which cost more.’
Buckingham pointed to the French bribe in Tradescant’s hand. ‘Go and buy it,’ he said simply.
Tradescant packed that night and was ready to leave at dawn. He left a note for his master, promising that the gold would be safe in his keeping and that he would buy as many bulbs as could be got but, to his surprise, when he was about to mount his horse in the street outside the Buckingham hôtel, the duke himself came lounging out, pulling on a robe against the cold morning air, dressed only in his shirt and boots and breeches.
‘My lord!’ Tradescant dropped the reins of his horse and went towards him. ‘I had thought you would sleep till noon!’
‘I woke and thought of you setting off on your own adventure and I chose to come down to bid you farewell,’ Buckingham said casually.
‘I would have waited if I had known. I could have left later and you could have had your sleep.’
Buckingham slapped John on the shoulder. ‘I know. It doesn’t matter. I knew you were setting off early, and I woke and looked from my window and took a fancy to see you ride away.’
John said nothing, there were no words to say to the greatest man in England who rose at dawn after a night’s dancing to bid a servant farewell.
‘Enjoy yourself,’ Buckingham urged. ‘Stay as long as you like, draw on my banker, buy anything which takes your fancy and bring it home to New Hall. I want tulips next season, my John. I want thousands of beautiful tulips.’
‘You shall have them,’ Tradescant said fervently. ‘I shall give you gardens of great beauty, my lord. Great beauty.’ He paused for a moment and cleared his throat. ‘And when am I to be home, my lord?’