‘Not in a Christian home you don’t,’ she said sharply. ‘I cannot allow it, Mr Tradescant, it is not fit. It is lechery to show yourself like this to me. If my husband were well and in his right mind he would not permit it.’

‘I had no thought of lechery, Mrs Hobert –’

She gestured to the clothes spread at the fireside. ‘Then dress yourself, Mr Tradescant, please.’

John stayed with the Hoberts for a full week, dressed in English clothes again, but still barefoot. The shirt chafed at his neck, the breeches felt hot and constricting around his legs. But he wore them out of courtesy to Sarah’s feelings, and he did not feel he could leave her until Bertram was well again.

The fever broke on the third night, and the next day Bertram was well enough to hobble down to the river, leaning on John’s arm.

The little green tobacco shoots were showing through the earth of the nursery beds. Bertram paused and looked at them as dotingly as if they were sleeping children. ‘Here is my fortune, Tradescant,’ he said. ‘Here is my fortune growing. If we can survive the rest of this cold weather without starving, without falling to the savages, then this will be the making of me. I shall see it sold on the quayside at Jamestown. I shall see it packed and sailing for England. I shall hire a servant, a brace of servants, and I will make myself a life here.’

‘God willing,’ John said.

‘Stay with us,’ Hobert said. ‘Stay with us and you can take a share in this, John. I doubt I can manage without you and Sarah cannot do it all on her own. Francis has no skill with plants, I am afraid to let him touch them. If I am sick when they need planting out who is going to do the work? Stay with me and see my tobacco plants safely into the field.’

‘I can’t stay,’ John said as gently as he could. ‘I have made a different life for myself in this country. But I can come back to you and see that you are well. I’ll come back gladly and work for you. I’ll set out the seedlings for you and show you how the Powhatan plant their food crops so you never need go hungry again.’

‘You’ll come back to plant out my tobacco? You swear it?’

‘I swear,’ John said.

‘Then we won’t need food crops,’ Hobert said buoyantly. ‘We shall buy all we need with what I can earn from the tobacco. And I’ll see you right, John. Next season I shall come to your headright and work for you, as we promised, eh? As we always said we would do.’