She flung open the door so a cool wind blew in around John’s bare legs. ‘I would never deny God’s authority,’ she said. ‘And I have not denied the authority of men. Mind you don’t catch cold.’

John turned abruptly and went to the bedroom to get dressed.

1622

‘Should we not transplant that chestnut?’ J asked his father.

John was leaning on his spade, watching his coltish fourteen-year-old son at work. ‘It must be getting too big for that box,’ J said.

‘I gave that to your mother the year we were married,’ John said reminiscently. ‘Sir Robert and I bought a dozen of them – no, half a dozen. Five I planted for him at Hatfield and one I gave to your mother. She kept it in a pot at Meopham, and then I moved it into the carrying box when we went to Hatfield, with you so little on the bench seat of the wagon that your feet didn’t reach the board.’

‘Shouldn’t we plant it out now?’ J asked. ‘So it can put down great roots?’

‘I suppose so,’ John said thoughtfully. ‘But we can leave it another year. I’m going to buy some land at the back of our house, make a bigger garden, so that we can see it spread out. The man who sold it to me said they grow as wide as an oak tree. There’s no room for it in the cottage garden, it would overspread the house. And I’d be loath to plant it here.’

J gazed around Lord Wootton’s graceful garden, at the grey walls and the high tower of Canterbury Cathedral behind. ‘Why not? It would look well enough.’

John shook his head. ‘Because it’s your mother’s,’ he said gently. ‘Given from me to her the first time I loved her. She rarely comes in here, she’d never see it. It’s her keepsake. We must buy her a bigger house with a bigger garden so she can sit underneath it and rock your babies on her knee.’

J flushed with the quick embarrassment of a young man still too innocent for bawdy talk. ‘There won’t be babies from me for a while,’ he said gruffly. ‘So don’t count on it.’

‘You put your roots down first,’ John advised. ‘Like your mother’s chestnut sapling. Shall we take a break for our dinner now?’

‘I’ll go on,’ J said. ‘I want to take a look at those Spanish onions of yours. They should be fit to taste soon.’

‘They’ll be very sweet if they’ve grown as well as they do at their home,’ John said. ‘They eat them like fruit in Gibraltar. And take a look at the melon glasses when you’re in the kitchen garden. They should be ripening. Bank up some straw around and under them to keep the slugs off.’