He swung back his coat and J saw the bag of pennies at his belt.

‘Good,’ J said. ‘Then I am sure Their Majesties will have a merry visit.’

He had feared that Jane would be rebellious, but the challenge to her housekeeping was such that, for the moment, she put aside her principles. She sent a message to her mother in the city and Mrs Hurte arrived at dawn on the day of the royal visit with her own store of damask tablecloths, and her own box of ginger biscuits and sugared plums. Josiah Hurte had disapproved; but the women were on their mettle and were determined that there should be no critical comments at the court about the chief gardener’s house.

The rarities room and the parlour had been swept and polished ever since the gentleman usher had left the house. Jane laid the table in the parlour and set the fire against the cold of the January day, while J and his father prowled around the rarities room for the hundredth time, ensuring that every case stood open and that every rarity – even the smallest carved hazelnut shell – was laid out to its best advantage.

When everything was polished and prepared, there was nothing to do but wait.

Frances went to sit on the front garden wall at half past ten. At eleven, John sent the garden lad down the road to keep watch and give them warning when he saw the royal carriage roof rocking down the bumpy road towards them. At midday Frances came in, her fingertips blue with cold, saying that there was no sign of them, and that the king was a liar and a fool.

Jane shushed her and rushed her to the kitchen to get warm before the fire.

At two o’clock John said that he was too starved to wait, and went to the kitchen for a bowl of soup. Frances, perched on her stool and with her face inside a large bowl of broth, emerged only to say that the king shouldn’t say he was coming if he did not mean it, as it caused a lot of people, especially those who had to wait in the cold, a great deal of discomfort.

‘If he’s the king, he should do what he promises.’

‘You’re not the first to think that,’ John remarked.

At three o’clock, after tempers had frayed and the fires in the parlour and the rarities room had burned down and been renewed, there was a thunderous knocking at the garden door and the lad poked his frozen face into the room, his nose blue with cold, and said: ‘They’re coming at last!’

Frances screamed and ran for her cloak, all complaints forgotten, and rushed to her station on the front wall. J leaped from his seat at the kitchen table, wiped his mouth, and rubbed his hands on the cloth.