Frances laid down her green bouquet and took the pot of primroses to the mirror in the rarities room. Her high heels sounded hollow on the floorboards; only the big things were left in the room, with a collection of lesser pieces which could be sacrificed to save the others. The room was rich enough to fool a looting soldier into thinking that he had seen all the treasures. Hester kept the key to the ice-house door on a chain round her neck and the ivy was growing thickly over the hinges.

Frances picked the flowers, nipping the soft stems with her fingernails, and tucked them behind her ears and into her ringlets.

‘Pretty?’ she asked, turning to her brother.

‘Well enough,’ he said, concealing his pride as he took her hand and tucked it under his arm.

They married at Little St Bartholomew’s Church, Old Fish Street, in the City with Hester as one witness and Alexander’s friend Thomas Streeter as the other. They dined that night at Alexander’s house opposite the Tower of London and raised a glass to the father of the bride.

‘I wonder where he is tonight?’ Mr Streeter asked thoughtlessly. Alexander glanced quickly at Hester’s stricken face.

‘I don’t mind, as long as he’s safe,’ she said.

It was hard for Hester to leave Frances. She had cared for her since she had been a fair-headed, sad little girl of nine years old, overwhelmed by the responsibility of looking after her brother, missing her mother every night and every day. She had been too proud to ask for help; she would always have all of the Tradescant stubbornness. She had been too independent to ask for love; but Hester would treasure all her life the memory of the way that Frances had stepped sideways, without glancing up, until she could lean against her stepmother’s comforting hip and feel a protective hand rest gently on her shoulder.

‘I shall miss you,’ Hester whispered as she took her leave in the cramped hall of Alexander’s house the next day.

‘Oh, Mother –’ Frances said, and dived into her embrace. ‘But I shall come to the Ark often, and you will come and see us. Won’t she, Alexander?’

Alexander Norman, looking years younger as if sheer joy had smoothed the lines from his face, beamed at Hester and said: ‘You can come and live with us, if you like. I should think myself a Pasha of Turkey with two such beauties in the house.’

‘I have the Ark to see to,’ Hester affirmed. ‘But I expect you on a visit often. And when there is plague in the city …’

‘I shall send her to you at once,’ Alexander reassured her. ‘Never fear. And I shall write you what news there is.’