‘I do. I agreed to be your wife, and to rear your children, and to care for the rarities and the garden and the Ark. How can I do these things in Virginia?’

‘You can care for me and the children.’

Hester shook her head. ‘I won’t take the children there. You know yourself how dangerous it is there. There are wild Indians, and hunger, dreadful disease. I won’t take the children into danger.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And I won’t leave here.’

‘This is my home,’ John reminded her. ‘And I am prepared to leave it.’

‘It is my home too.’

They locked gazes like enemies. John remembered his first impression of her as a plain-faced managing woman who had been put in his house without his consent. ‘Hester, I am going to Virginia,’ he said coldly. ‘And it is my wish that you come with me and the children.’

Her straight gaze never wavered. ‘I am sorry,’ she said evenly. ‘I cannot do that. I will not take the children into danger and I have no wish to leave my home. If you go then I will keep everything safe for your return, and I will welcome you when you return.’

‘My father …’ he started.

‘Your father trusted me with the care of this house and with the care of the children while you were away,’ she said. ‘I promised him on his deathbed that I would keep it all safe: plants, rarities, and children. I will not leave this house for any wandering battalion to take it over and to chop down his trees for firewood. I won’t leave his chestnut avenue for them to spoil. I won’t leave it unprotected for any vagrants to steal the fruit or pick the flowers. I won’t leave the rarities stored in a warehouse with no idea of when I can return. And I will not take Jane’s children to a country far away where I know they cling to survival against all the odds.’

‘Jane’s children!’ he shouted. ‘Jane was my wife! They are my children! She is nothing to you! They are nothing to you!’

John saw her flinch as if he had slapped her face. But it did not shake her steadiness. ‘You are wrong,’ she said simply. ‘I have long thought of myself as caring for Jane’s children and trying to care for them as she would wish. And sometimes I think that she looks down from heaven and sees them, growing strong and beautiful, and that she is happy for them. But they are my children too, I have loved them without fail for four years and I will not take them from their home because you have decided to leave your master and leave your country and leave your home.’

‘I’m not faithless!’ he said, stung.