John, accustomed to Jane’s high morality, was torn between shock at her frankness and a sense of freedom at her honesty. ‘Nothing more than that?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think there is anything more than that.’
‘And she can certainly draw.’ Her uncle moved the conversation into safer areas. ‘I thought I would use her sketches of your flowery mead as a background in some of the pictures for the queen’s walls.’
The young woman flushed with pleasure. ‘I will block them out for you,’ she promised.
‘Can you draw and colour tulips?’ John asked. ‘There are some in the queen’s apartment which are just coming into flower and I should like to have a picture to show my son. He chose them, bought them, and planted them. He will want to know how they have done. We have had our disappointments with tulips –’
‘Money?’ she guessed acutely. ‘Were you caught when the tulip market fell?’
John nodded. ‘But I should like him to know that they are still beautiful, even if they are not profitable.’
‘I would be pleased to try,’ she said. ‘I have not had the chance of seeing many tulips in flower. I know the Dutch tulip paintings, of course.’
‘Come to my house this evening,’ John suggested. ‘I live adjoining the silkworm house. I’ll bring a little bowl of them.’
Hester did not curtsey as she left them but dipped her head, like a boy, and went away. Her stride was like a boy’s as well, firm and matter-of-fact.
‘It is all right that she comes?’ John asked, suddenly remembering his manners. ‘I had thought I was speaking to a young draughtsman. I forgot she was a young woman.’
‘If she were a boy I would have had her as my apprentice,’ her uncle said, watching her go. ‘She can come to your house, Mr Tradescant, but I have to guard her around the court. It is a nuisance. Some of these gentlemen write sonnets to the queen all day and then go wenching like lechers at night.’
‘I have a lass like her at home,’ John said, thinking of Frances and her desire to be gardener to the king. ‘She’s been told that she will have to marry a gardener, that is the closest she can get to the work; but she wants to be one herself.’
‘What does her mother say?’
‘She has none now. Plague.’
The man nodded in sympathy. ‘It’s hard for a maid to grow up without a mother. Who cares for her?’
‘We have a cook who has been with us for many years,’ John said. ‘And housemaids. But when my son comes home from Virginia he will have to re-marry. There’s my grandson as well. They cannot be left in the care of servants.’
De Critz slid a thoughtful sideways glance at him. ‘Hester has a good dowry,’ he said casually. ‘Her parents left her with two hundred pounds.’
‘Oh,’ said John, thinking of that straightforward nod of the head and the confident walk. ‘Did they, indeed?’
Hester Pooks sat at the table in John’s little sitting room and drew the queen’s bowl of tulips, squinting against the candlelight and the last rays of the evening sunshine.
‘I’ve seen the tulip books,’ she said. ‘My uncle borrowed one to copy once. They show the bulb, don’t they? And the roots?’
‘You can’t show these bulbs,’ John said hastily. ‘They must be left undisturbed. Please God they are spawning underneath the soil and I will soon have two or three tulips everywhere I once had one.’
‘And what do you do with the extra tulips?’ she asked, never taking her eyes from the flower except to look down at her page. John watched her; he liked her direct, searching gaze.
‘Some I replant in new pots here and keep them for the king and queen next year, and some I take home and plant in my own garden and keep them as stock for my nursery.’
‘So who owns them?’ she persisted.
‘The king and queen own the parent plants,’ John said. ‘For they commissioned my son to buy them, and paid for them. And the little bulblets we share. My son and I take half and the king and queen take half.’
She nodded. ‘You double your stock every year? That’s a good business,’ she observed.
John thought that she was surprisingly astute for the niece of an artist. ‘But it does not show the profits any more,’ he said ruefully. ‘The market smashed in February. The best of the tulip bulbs were going for prices that would buy you a house. Passed from trader to trader as a paper bond, getting more expensive each time.’
‘So what happened? What stopped the market?’
John spread his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I saw it happen; but I still don’t understand it. It was like magic. One moment they were bulbs, rare and rather precious, but priced within the reach of a gardener who might grow them. Next moment they were priced like pearls and everyone wanted them. All of a sudden it’s as if the Bourse woke up to the fact that they were going mad over flowers, and they were priced like bulbs again. In truth, less than bulbs, because nobody wanted to be a tulip trader any more, to be a tulip gardener was like standing up in public and saying you were a greedy fool.’
‘Did you lose much money?’
‘Enough.’ John was not going to tell her that all of their savings had been in tulip bulbs. That their wealth had blown away just as the windhandel market had blown away and that he and J had sworn a solemn oath, a peasant’s oath, never to trust anything but the value of land ever again.
Hester nodded and drew a smooth swift line on the page, the tulip’s curving veil-like leaf. ‘It is an awful thing to lose your money. My father used to have a shop of artists’ supplies, he lost his money when he fell sick. When he died there was nothing left for us at all. The only money we had was on a ship coming from the West Indies. It did not arrive for a year. In that year, as I sold first the carpet and the curtains, and then every stick of furniture we had, and then my dresses too, I swore that I would never be poor again.’
She gave him a quick sideways glance. ‘I learned that nothing matters as much as holding on to what you have.’
‘There is God’s guidance and your faith,’ John suggested.
She nodded. ‘I don’t deny it. But when you have sold your chair and are sitting on a small chest which holds every single thing you own, you gain a good deal of interest in the life here, and less in the life hereafter.’
Jane would have been appalled at such free speech, but John was not. ‘A hard lesson for a young woman,’ he commented.
‘It’s a hard world for a young woman, for anyone without a secure place,’ she said. Her eyes followed the tulip’s neck and her charcoal drew a swift line on the page. John watched her at work. She made it look absurdly easy. She was a plain girl, he thought, plain-featured and plain-spoken, and he thought that his wife Elizabeth would have liked her enormously. A straightforward girl who could be relied on to run a small business, a sensible girl who would look for reliability and dependability in a husband and not necessarily expect more. A girl who knew the value of money, not a spendthrift woman from court. A good girl who would care for children who needed a mother.
‘D’you like children?’ he asked abruptly.
She drew another smooth line for the tulip’s sensuous wavy stem. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I hope to have children of my own one day.’
‘You might marry a man who has children already,’ John said.
She shot him an acute glance over the top of her drawing block. ‘I’d have no objection.’
‘Even if they were up and running around?’ John asked incautiously, thinking of Frances and her determined nature. ‘Another woman’s children, brought up in her ways and not yours?’
‘You are thinking of your grandchildren,’ she said, cutting through his hedging with one swift slice. ‘My uncle has told you that I have a good dowry and you are wondering if I would care for your grandchildren.’
John choked slightly on his pipe. ‘You are a frank speaker,’ he exclaimed.
She turned her attention to her drawing. ‘Something has to happen,’ she s
aid quietly. ‘I cannot travel around with my uncle forever, and I want a home of my own and a husband to settle down with. I should like children, and a good little business to run.’
‘My son is grieving for his wife,’ John warned her. ‘There may be no room in his heart for another woman at all. You might marry him and live with him all your life and never hear a word of love from him.’
Hester nodded, her hand steady and skilful as she turned the charcoal on its side and rubbed it gently against the grain of the paper to show the delicate veining on the tulip leaf. ‘It is an understanding. An agreement; not a love affair.’
‘Will that be enough for you?’ John asked curiously. ‘A young woman of your age?’
‘I’m not a young maid,’ she said steadily. ‘I am a spinster of the parish of St Bride’s. A maid is a girl with a life of promise before her. I am a spinster of twenty-five in need of a husband. If your son will have me, and treat me kindly, I will have him. I don’t care that he has loved another woman, even if he loves her still. What I care about is getting a home of my own and children to care for. Somewhere I can hold up my head. And you and he are well-known; he works for the king direct and he has the ear of the queen. With Parliament dissolved and London trade doing badly, there is no other route of advancement other than the court. This would be a very good match for me. It’s nothing more than adequate for him, but I will make it worth his while. I will guard his business and his children.’
John had the delightful sensation that he should not be having this conversation at all, that J was not a lad to have these things arranged for him, he was a man who should make his own choices. But it was a great pleasure to organise things as he wished, and he was afraid for his grandchildren.
‘Frances is nine and her brother is four years old. A girl needs a mother, and Johnny is not out of his short coats. You would care for them and give them the love they need?’
Still Hester did not take her eyes from the tulip. ‘I would. And I would give you more grandchildren, if God is merciful.’
‘I won’t be with you for long,’ John predicted. ‘I’m an old man. That’s why I’m in a hurry to see my grandchildren safe and my son married. I want to know that I leave it all in safe hands.’
She put down her paper and for the first time her eyes met his. ‘Trust me. I will care for all three of them, and for your rarities, for the Ark, and for the gardens.’
She thought that a look of immense relief passed over his face as if he now saw the way out of some complex thick-leaved maze.
‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘When Their Majesties leave here, I’ll go home and you can come with me. You should see the children and they see you before we go further. And then J will come home from Virginia and the two of you can see if you like each other enough.’
‘What if he doesn’t like me?’ Hester asked bluntly. ‘I’m not a beauty. He might think he could do better.’
‘Then I’ll bring you back to your uncle and you’re no worse off,’ John said. He thought he had never met a woman so frank. The lack of vanity and the plain speaking suited him; he wondered if J would like her for it, or if she would embarrass him. ‘Of course, you might not like him.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not a princess in a romance pining for love,’ she said. ‘If he can give me a house and business and a couple of children, that’s all I want. I could shake on the agreement today.’
John reminded himself that to put out his hand and shake on the agreement now would be to trap her as well as to trap his son. He heard Cecil’s wise cynicism in his head urging him to do it and turned away. ‘I won’t let you be too hasty,’ he said, resisting the temptation. ‘Come with me to the Ark at Lambeth, meet the children, see the house and see if it suits you before we say more.’
Hester nodded, her eyes back on the tulips again. ‘Good,’ she said.
John was weary to the very marrow of his bones on the journey home from Oatlands to Lambeth. The road seemed longer than usual and the river crossing was cold, with a bitter wind that swept down the river and cut through his leather waistcoat and his woollen cloak. The ague that he had brought home from Rhé, which descended on him whenever he was tired, made him ache in every bone of his body. He was glad that Hester was there to pay the ferryman and to commandeer a wagon for them to ride down the South Lambeth Road. She had an eye to his comfort all the way but not even her care could stop the wind blowing chill or the wagon jolting down the road in the winter ruts.
When they halted outside the house she had to help him over the little bridge and into the house, and as soon as she was in the door she was giving orders for his comfort as if she were mistress already.
The servants obeyed her willingly – lighting a fire in John’s room, bringing a chair for him to sit in, bringing him a glass of hot wine. She knelt before him, her cloak still tied around her neck, her muff pushed to one side, and rubbed his cold hands until they lost their blueness and tingled.
‘Thank you,’ John said. ‘I feel a fool, bringing you here and then needing your help.’
Hester rose to her feet with a slight smile which made little of her care of him, and set him at his ease. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said easily.
She was a woman who could set a house to rights in moments. In a very short time she had clean sheets on John’s bed, and a bowl of hot soup and a loaf of white wheaten bread sent up to him so that he could dine in his bedroom. Then she turned her attention to the children and sat with them in the kitchen while they ate their supper.
She heard them say grace after the meal, both heads bowed obediently over their hands. Baby John still had the golden silky curls of infancy falling over his white lace collar. Frances’s brown sleek hair was hidden under her white cap. Hester had to stop herself from reaching out and gathering the two of them on to her lap.
‘The mistress used to say prayers every morning and evening,’ the cook volunteered from the fireside. ‘D’you remember, Frances?’
The girl nodded and looked away.
‘Would you like us to pray, as your mother used to pray?’ Hester asked her gently.
Again Frances nodded wordlessly, turning her head away so that no-one could see the pain in her face. Hester put her hands together and closed her eyes and prayed, from the prayer book issued by Cranmer, as if there were no other way to address your maker. Hester had never been inside a church where prayers were spoken from the heart, she would have thought such behaviour unsettling, perhaps illegal. She said the words the archbishop had ruled, and prayed by rote.
And Frances, slowly, without turning her head or indicating in any way that she wanted an embrace, stepped backwards, towards Hester, closer and closer and then finally leaned back against her, still not looking around. Gently, carefully, Hester dropped her hands from where they were clasped in prayer and rested one hand on Frances’s thin shoulder, and then the other on Johnny’s silky curls. Johnny was comfortable under the caress and leaned at once towards her, but she felt the little girl’s shoulder tense for a moment, and then relax as if the child were relinquishing a burden which she had been carrying alone. While the others said ‘Amen’ out loud to the familiar prayer, Hester added a private silent wish that she might take these children who belonged to another woman, and bring them up as their mother would have wanted, and that in time they would come to love her.
She did not move away when the prayers ceased but stood still, her hand on each child. Johnny turned his little round face up to her and lifted up his arms, mutely asking to be picked up. She stooped and lifted him and settled him on her hip, and felt the deep satisfaction of a child’s weight at her side and his arms around her neck. Still without looking, and with no word of appeal, the girl Frances turned towards Hester and Hester folded her into the crook of her arm and pressed the sad little face into her apron.
John recovered after a few days at home, and was soon setting seeds in pots and sending Frances out in the frosty garden to gather up, without
fail, every single one of the last chestnuts as they fell from the trees down the avenue.
The nuts were so precious that the household linen was spread beneath the wide branches of the trees from autumn to springtime to ensure that not a single prickly casing or warm brown nut was lost in the grass. Hester mentioned the risk of staining or tearing the sheets, but John said firmly that one nut was worth a dozen sheets and that the garden must always come before the house.
He took Hester on long cold walks down to the bottom of the orchard, showed her every single tree and named it for her. In the blustery wet days of March he stayed in the orangery before a potting table with a barrel of sieved earth at his side and taught Hester how to set seeds. He showed her the tender plants which lived in the orangery from autumn to spring to protect them from winter frosts, and he showed her the winter jobs: the cleaning of the big tub planters, the washing of the pots, and airing them, ready for the fever of spring planting. One lad spent all the winter sieving earth for the seed beds and for the pots. Another brewed up a fearful barrel of water fortified with horse and cow manure and a nettle soup of John’s own devising, which would be sprinkled on every precious seedling.
They passed a quiet few weeks. A sailor, fresh into port, had a sealed parcel of seeds for John and a letter from Virginia.
‘He says he will be home by April,’ John read. ‘He says he is writing this before going out into the woods for a week. He has an Indian guide who leads him around and shows him plants and brings him safe in.’ He paused and looked into the embers of the fire. ‘I wish he would come home,’ he said fretfully. ‘I am impatient for him to be here and everything settled.’
‘He will come in good time,’ Hester said soothingly. There was a single disloyal thought in her head that they were managing very well without him, John busy and contented, the museum taking a small but steady flow of money, and the children taught by her every morning and kissed goodnight by her every night.
‘He should be already on his way,’ John said. ‘This letter is eight weeks old. He may be at sea now.’