In the end, he was not Sir John Tradescant of Lambeth, nor plain John, nor even Josiah. She was Frances, and she came at four o’clock on a dark dreary December morning while J and his father drank brandy downstairs and the women and the women servants wailed and scolded and ran about upstairs until the men finally heard that tiny indignant cry.

J put down his glass with a crack and ran to the foot of the stairs. His mother was standing at the top, beaming. ‘A girl,’ she announced. ‘A lovely dark-headed girl.’

J ran up the stairs and into Jane’s bedroom.

‘And Jane?’ Tradescant asked, thinking of the birth of J and the dreadful pain Elizabeth had suffered, and then the news that there would be no more babies.

‘She is well, thank God,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Resting now.’

Husband and wife met each other’s gaze with a steady faithful smile. ‘Our grandchild,’ John said wonderingly. ‘I thought I’d set my heart on a boy, but now it comes to it I am just glad that it is a girl and born sound and whole.’

‘Maybe a boy next time,’ Elizabeth said.

John nodded. ‘There will be a next time?’

She smiled. ‘I don’t think this is the last time that you and J will be drinking brandy together while we women do all the work.’

‘Well, amen to that. I’ll send the stable boy with a message to Josiah and Mrs Hurte. They’ll want to know at once.’

‘Tell them to come and stay for as long as they like,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I can make up a bed for them in the third bedroom.’

John grinned at Elizabeth’s casual use of the words ‘third bedroom’ as if they had never had a house with fewer than a dozen rooms. ‘They could bring all their congregation as well,’ he said. ‘Now we live so grand.’

Elizabeth flapped her apron at him. ‘Go and send your message. I have work to do.’

‘God be with you, wife,’ John said lovingly from the foot of the stairs. ‘And give Jane my blessing. Has she named the child?’

‘She wants to call her Frances.’

John went out of the front door to the veranda. The cold night air was crisp and sharp, and the stars were like pin-heads against a deep blue silk sky. The moon was down and it was too dark to see more than the weathered boards of the veranda and the spiky stalks of the fruit trees. John had planted his chestnut sapling and its first rooted cutting as a pair before the house and, two by two, a dozen cuttings from them to make a little avenue of chestnut running the length of the orchard. Their bare branches were as thin as whips against the arching cold sky.