John flinched a little at the bareness of the note but he did not feel he could, in all conscience, offer any explanation or any reassurance of love. He feared that perhaps Hester would be hard-pressed to find twenty pounds to pay into a London goldsmith so that the note of credit could be good in Virginia, but he could not bring himself to offer advice as to what she might sell from the collection. He had been too long away. He did not know if she had been able to keep the collection safe. He did not even know for certain that she was still at the Lambeth address. He felt as if he were pitching a rope into darkness and hoping that someone on an unseen quayside might catch it and haul him in. He paused before signing his name. If anyone would haul him in, it would be Hester.

I trust you, Hester, and when I come home I shall thank you for your care of me and mine.

He signed his name and ran down to the wooden pier and thrust the note at the captain. ‘Please see that she receives it,’ he said. ‘I am trapped here unless she can send me my fare home.’ He looked at the ship. ‘Unless I could work a passage?’

The captain laughed in his face. ‘Work your passage? You’re a seaman, are you?’

‘No,’ John said.

‘If you want to go home, mister, you’ll have to pay for your voyage, same as anyone.’

‘She’ll reward you for bringing the note,’ John promised him. ‘Please see that she receives it.’

The captain tucked it carelessly into his jacket. ‘Oh aye,’ he said and shouted to the sailors to let go.

The current of the river caught the ship and she pulled away from the quayside. John watched the sails unfurl and heard the shouted orders and the creaks of the rope and timbers as the ship got underway.

‘How long before you hear?’ the planter asked him.

‘It can’t be quicker than four months,’ John said. ‘A voyage there and back, if she has the money, that is.’

The man grinned. ‘I could use a hand to work the crop,’ he said.

John nodded. Labour was notoriously hard to find in Virginia. He would have to be a hired hand until Hester sent him a note of credit and he could become a gentleman again.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But I have to go to Jamestown first. I have a promise to keep.’

John saw the governor for a brief snatched moment as the great man strode from the new assembly room to the governor’s mansion. John hobbled after him in his ill-fitting shoes. ‘Sir William?’

The young man turned, took in John’s humble clothes and strolled on. ‘Yes?’ he threw over his shoulder.