He took three swift steps across the room and turned her around, held her at arms’ length so that he could see her face. ‘I think of you, as I have long thought of you, as one of the most courageous and lovable women that I have ever met. But I know John will come home to you, and I know that you have loved him ever since you were married. I think of you now as I will always think of you, as a dear, dear friend.’

Hester looked away, wretched with embarrassment. ‘I thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Please let me go.’

‘It was my own shyness and stupidity in what I said that led you to misunderstand me,’ he said determinedly. ‘Please, don’t be angry with me, or angry with yourself.’

She twisted from his hold. ‘I feel that I have been a fool!’ she exclaimed. ‘Refusing a proposal which wasn’t being made to me. And you are a fool too!’ She suddenly regained her spirits. ‘Thinking that you could marry a girl who is hardly out of her short clothes.’

He went for the door. ‘I’ll take a turn in the garden, if I may,’ he said. ‘And we’ll talk again later.’

He went out without another word and Hester, looking from the window, saw him walk along the terrace on the south side of the house and down the steps into the garden.

The garden was at its mid-May perfection. In the walled fruit garden he could not see the sky for the mass of pink and white blossom, as thick as rose-sugared cream on a pudding. In the long walks in the flower gardens the daffodils and tulips were a wash of colour, red and gold and white. The chestnut avenue was coming into its height of beauty, the blossoms opening up into thick candles, white delicately marked with pink. On the walls on the right-hand side of the garden the espaliered figs and peaches and cherries were already weighted with blossom, showering petals on the flower beds beneath them like unseasonal snow.

The parlour door behind Hester opened and Frances came in with Alexander’s glass of ale. ‘Has he gone?’

‘You can perfectly well see that he has,’ Hester snapped.

Frances put down the glass without spilling a drop and turned to examine her stepmother’s cross face.

‘What did he do to upset you?’ she asked calmly.

‘He said something ridiculous, and I thought something ridiculous and I feel … I feel …’

‘Ridiculous?’ Frances suggested, and was rewarded with a glare of irritation.

Hester turned away from her and looked out of the window again. In the thick window pane she could see, simultaneously, Alexander strolling in the garden and the reflection of her own face. She looked grim. She looked like a woman struggling under the weight of many worries, and still fighting them.