‘And there’s the herbs and vegetables,’ the gardener reminded her. ‘He’s got seven sorts of garlic alone, a red lettuce which can make seventeen ounces of good leaves, allspick lavender, Jamaican pepper. His flowers come from all over the world, and we send them all over the country. Spiderwort – he gave his name to it. Tradescant’s spiderwort, a three-petalled flower the colour of the sky. On a wet day it closes up so you think it’s dead, on a sunny day it is as blue as your gown. A flower to lift your heart, grow for you anywhere. Mountain valerian, lady’s smock, large-flowered gentians, silver knapweed, dozens of geraniums, ranunculus – a flower like a springtime rose, anemones from Paris, five different types of rock rose, dozens of different clematis, the moon trefoil, the shrubby germander, erigeron – as pretty as daisies but as light and airy as snowdrops, his great rose daffodil with hundreds of petals. In the tulip beds alone we have a fortune. D’you know how many varieties? Fifty! And a Semper Augustus among them. The finest tulip ever grown!’

‘I didn’t know,’ Hester said. ‘I just thought he was a gardener …’

The gardener smiled at her. ‘He is a gardener, and an adventurer, and a man who was always there when history was being made,’ he said simply. ‘He’s the greatest man of this age for all that he’s always been someone’s servant. Fifty tulip varieties alone!’

Hester was gazing along the avenue of the horse chestnut saplings. Their buds were green, breaking out of the bud casings which were fat and shiny, wet and brown like molasses.

‘When will they bloom?’

The gardener followed her glance. ‘Not for another few weeks.’

She thought for a moment. ‘If we cut some branches and took them indoors and kept them warm?’

He nodded. ‘They might dry up and die. But they might open early.’

‘Pot up the tulips then,’ she decided, ‘all of them, every one of his fifty varieties. And anything that is ready to bloom in the rarities room or the orangery. Let’s make his bedroom a little forest, let’s make it a flowery mead, with branches and flowers and plants, everything he loves.’

‘To help him get better?’ the gardener asked.

Hester turned away. ‘So that he can say goodbye.’