Philippa Gregory - Virgin Earth

“Yes. But not near the house.”

Hester dipped a little curtsy.

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 arbors, and weeding, weeding, weeding: the white gravel of the stone gardens, the drive, the terrace, the stone-flagged arbors. 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, practicing 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 onto 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 apologized 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 defense. 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 judgment 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!”