Cecil was dying in the great curtained bed in the master chamber of his new fine house. Outside his door, the household staff pretended to go about their work in a hushed silence, hoping to hear the muttered colloquy of the doctors. Some wanted to send him to Bath to take the waters – his last chance of health. Some were for leaving him in his bed to rest. Sometimes, when his door opened, the servants could hear the harsh labouring of his breath and see him propped up on the rich embroidered pillows, the brightness of their spring colours a mockery of his yellowing skin.

John Tradescant, weeping like a woman, was deep digging in the vegetable garden, digging without much purpose, in a frenzy of activity as if his energy and effort could put heart in the earth, could put the heart back into his master.

At midday he abruptly left his vegetable bed and marched determinedly through the three courts on the west of the house, up the allee, past the mount where the paths were rimmed with yellow primroses, out into the woodland side of the garden. The ground was a sea of blue as if the whole wood was deep in flood. John kneeled and picked bluebells with steady concentration and did not stop until he had an armful. Then he went to the house, careless of the mud dropping off his boots, up the stairs where his likeness in wood still stepped blithely out of the newel post, up to the master bedroom. A housemaid stopped him at the door to the anteroom. He would not be allowed further in.

‘Take these, and show them to him,’ he said.

She hesitated. Flowers in the house were for strewing on the floor, or for a posy to wear at the belt or hatband. ‘What would he want with them?’ she demanded. ‘What would a dying man want with bluebells?’

‘He’d like to see them,’ John urged her. ‘I know he would. He likes bluebells.’

‘I’ll have to give them to Thomas,’ she said. ‘I’m not allowed in, anyway.’

‘Then give them to Thomas,’ John pressed her. ‘What harm can it do? And I know it would please him.’

She was stubborn. ‘I don’t see why.’

John gestured helplessly. ‘Because when a man is going into darkness it helps him to know that he leaves some light behind!’ he exclaimed. ‘Because when a man is facing his own winter it is good to know that there will still be springs and summers. Because he is dying … and when he sees the bluebells he will know that I am still here, outside, and that I picked him some flowers. He will know that I am still here, just outside, digging in his garden. He will know that I am here, still digging for him.’

The look she turned on him was pure incomprehension. ‘But Mr Tradescant! Why should that help him?’