A brief gleam of pride crossed John’s face. ‘That is what I have learned this year at least,’ he said. ‘I have learned how to make a garden new-made look as if it was there when Eden was planted. The trick of it is to put things too close, and bear the work of moving them before they get overcrowded. Also you have to take a risk of moving things which are really too big to be disturbed. Digging a wide trench around the roots. Those trees now –’ He broke off. His wife was smiling at him but she was not listening. ‘I have found a way of moving trees so they don’t wither,’ he finished. ‘But it’s of little interest except to another gardener.’

‘It means that you have given me a beautiful garden which I will treasure,’ she said. She came into his arms and held him close. ‘And I thank you for it. I see now why the little patch at Meopham was not enough. I never thought of you making a cottage garden like you make grand gardens, my John, but you have given me a little beauty here.’

He smiled at her pleasure and bent his head and kissed her. Her lips were still soft and warm and he thought with rising desire that tonight they would bed in a new room and tomorrow wake to look out on the great parkland of Hatfield, and their new life would begin.

‘We’ll see these trees grow strong,’ he said. ‘And we’ll plant the chestnut sapling at the bottom of the garden and sit in its shade when we are old.’

She nestled a little closer. ‘And we’ll bide at home,’ she said firmly.

John rested his cheek against her warm cap. ‘When we’re old,’ he promised, disarmingly.

The very next day the earl himself came down to visit the Tradescants in their new cottage. Elizabeth was flustered and overawed by the grandness of the pony carriage with one footman driving, and another hanging on the back. She came to the gate and curtseyed and stammered her thanks. But John opened the gate and went out to stand at the carriage door as to an intimate friend.

‘Are you ill?’ he asked Cecil quietly.

Cecil’s face was yellow and the lines of pain were deeper than ever. ‘No worse than usual,’ he replied.

‘Is it your bones?’

‘My belly this time,’ he said. ‘I am sick as a dog, John. But I can’t stop work yet. I have a plan to reform the king’s finances despite himself. If I can get him to agree then I can sell the whole scheme to Parliament, and hand over to them the farming of benefits in return for a proper wage for the king.’

John blinked. ‘You want the king to be paid by Parliament? To be its servant?’