Jane nodded, and stood back from the wagon as the man flipped the reins on the horses’ backs.

‘God bless you,’ Mrs Hurte called lovingly. ‘Wasn’t she a scandal!’

‘A scandal,’ Jane agreed and stood at the back gate and waved until the wagon was out of sight.

Spring 1635

Jane did not visit her mother all through the spring. Both John and J were either at Oatlands Palace or busy in the orchards and garden of Lambeth. There was always someone knocking at the garden door with a little plant in a pot, or some precious thing in a knotted handkerchief, and Jane would judge its value and buy it with the authority of a good housewife and a partner in the business. Then, there were the tulips to be watched into leaf and into flower. John had ordered an orangery to be built for them to raise up the tender plants and the builders needed to be watched as they knocked a doorway through into the main house. It was not until May that Jane felt she had enough leisure to leave the Ark and go to see her mother in the city. But then she went and stayed for a week.

The house was oddly empty without her. Frances did not miss her much; she was always her grandfather’s shadow, and when he was away she was always out in the garden with her father. But Baby John, nearly two, toddled round the house and demanded all day: ‘Where’s Mama? Where’s Mama?’

They expected her to come home rested and happy after a week’s cosseting in her old home, but when she finally returned she was tired and pale. The city had been unbearably hot, she said. There were more beggars on the streets than ever, she had seen a man dying in the gutter and had feared to touch him in case he was carrying the plague.

‘What sort of country is this, that the act of a Good Samaritan is too dangerous to do?’ she demanded, genuinely grieved at the struggle between her conscience and her safety.

Her father and all the merchants were complaining that they were taxed for trading, and then taxed for selling, and then taxed for storing goods. They too were ordered to pay ship money, which was set by an assessor who would come around and guess how much you were worth by the appearance of your house and business, and there was no appeal against him.