The waiting was the hardest time of all. She had the money from John Lambert for his order of tulips, and then she took some old Roman coins from the rarities room and offered them for sale to a London goldsmith. The price he gave her was little more than theft but Hester realised that portable treasures were flooding on to the market as one grand family after another tried to survive the war years. She went to Alexander Norman to borrow the rest of the money and took the whole amount to the goldsmith who was known to give and receive credit for Virginia. He signed a note of credit for twenty pounds to John Tradescant by name and then Hester had to take it down to the London docks and find a ship sailing to Virginia.

A vessel was waiting to go, almost ready to cast off: the Makepeace, going to Virginia by the southern route and stopping at the Sugar Islands.

‘I have to see the captain,’ Hester said to one of the sailors. She was jostled by a family throwing their bundles on board and pushing their way towards the gangplank. ‘Or a trustworthy gentleman.’

‘We’ve got a brace of vicars,’ the man said rudely. ‘And half a dozen cavaliers. Take your pick.’

‘I need a gentleman to assist me,’ Hester said stoutly. ‘I shall see one of the clerical gentlemen.’

The sailor laughed, turned his head and shouted below. Hester smoothed her cape and wished that she had brought Johnnie with her, or even allowed Alexander Norman to come too. Eventually a white-haired man looked down from the ship’s side and said quietly, as if he would not raise his voice over the din of the ship, ‘I am the Reverend Walter de Carey. May I help you, madam?’

Hester stepped quickly up the swaying gangplank and held out her hand. ‘How do you do, I am Mrs Tradescant, wife of John Tradescant of the Ark, Lambeth.’

He bowed over her hand. ‘I am honoured,’ he said.

‘I am sorry to ask a favour of a stranger but my husband has been –’ Hester paused for a moment. ‘Plant collecting in Virginia and finds himself without money. I have a note of credit for him but I need to find a trustworthy gentleman to take it to Virginia and give it to him.’

The man smiled wearily. ‘I am so little trusted that I have been expelled from my church and the blacksmith stands in my pulpit and tells my congregation what revelation he has gleaned that week from his forge fire,’ he said. ‘I was twenty years in my vicarage and I baptised every single one of those young men and women who now tell me that I am in league with the Antichrist and a worshipper of the whore of Babylon. They would not call me a trustworthy man.’