He took two of the new chestnuts in his pocket, still shining from the polishing he continually gave them. Of the six in the merchant’s box he had planted two in large pots and left them in a shady place in the garden, watering them gently every day from the dish placed underneath the pot to encourage their roots to grow down. Two he had kept in a net hung high out of the way of rats in his shed, planning that they should feel the heat of the summer on their glossy backs before he planted them in autumn, when the weeds died back and before the first frosts came, hoping to mimic the trees’ natural time for growth. Two he carried in the safe darkness of his pocket, planning to plant them in spring in case they needed to be hidden from frost and to feel the warmth of a new season and the damp richness of the spring earth to make them flourish. He thought he should have left them in a stone box in the darkness and coldness of the floor of the marble bath house but he could not resist their smooth round shapes, tucked in his waistcoat. A dozen times a day his fingers found their way into the little pocket to caress them like a broody hen turning over two precious eggs.

He buttoned down the flaps with care when he mounted his horse.

‘I shall stay some weeks with my wife,’ he said to the gardener’s lad who held the horse. ‘You can send for me, if I am needed. Otherwise I shall come home at the end of September.’ He did not notice he had called Theobalds ‘home’. ‘And have a care that you keep the gates shut,’ he reminded the boy, ‘and weed the grass every day. But do not touch the roses, I shall be back in time to see to them myself. You may take the heads off when they are finished flowering, and take the petals to the still room, but that is all.’