John took the bundle from her and Alexander took her hand. ‘What’s happened?’ John demanded.

‘The fever has broken and she has no swellings,’ Hester said. ‘But she has lost the baby.’ She looked at Alexander. ‘I am sorry, Alexander. I would have sent for the midwife but she was sure that it was too late. It was all over in a moment.’

He turned and looked up the stairs. ‘Can I go to her?’

Hester nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s not the plague, but don’t wake her, and don’t stay long.’

He went up the stairs so quietly that the treads did not squeak. John dropped the laundry on the floor and enfolded his wife in his arms. ‘You haven’t slept at all,’ he said gently. ‘Come. I’ll give you a glass of wine and then you must go to bed. Alexander can look after her now, or me, or Cook.’

She let him draw her into the parlour, seat her in a chair and press a glass of sweet wine into her hand. She took a sip and some of the colour came back into her cheeks. She had never looked more plain than now, when she was strained and weary. John had never loved her better.

‘You cared for her very tenderly,’ he said. ‘No mother could have done better.’

She smiled at that. ‘I could not love her more if I had given birth to her myself,’ she said. ‘And I have long thought that she has two mothers: Jane in heaven and me on earth.’

He took the chair beside her and he drew her on to his knee. Hester wound her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder and for the first time allowed herself to weep for the baby that was lost.

‘There will be other babies,’ John said, stroking her hair. ‘We will have dozens of grandchildren, from Frances, from Johnnie.’

‘But this one is lost,’ Hester said. ‘And if it had been a boy she was going to call him John.’

Summer 1646

Frances stayed at the Ark for all of the summer, promising Alexander that she would not return to his house in the City until the cold autumn weather had frozen out the plague. But they were not parted for many nights. The fighting was over and there was little demand for barrels for gunpowder. Many evenings Alexander took a boat from the Tower running with the incoming tide up the river to Lambeth, and then strode down the lane to the Ark to see his wife sitting on the front wall, waiting for him as if she were still a little girl.