Hester went down to the lake at dusk to find Johnnie. It was getting cold and the frogs were croaking in the reeds at the side of the pond and the bats dipping like night-time swifts to snatch the insects which still danced over the grey waters. She could just see the little rowboat with the oars shipped and Johnnie curled up in the stern, with his long legs trailing over the side of the boat and the heels of his boots dipping in the water and making circular ripples like rising fish.

‘Come in,’ she called, her voice gentle across the still water. ‘Come in, Johnnie. The war is over and that’s a thing to be glad for, not a matter of grief.’

The little huddled figure in the boat did not move.

John came down the path and stood beside Hester.

‘He won’t come in,’ she said.

John took her hand. ‘He will.’

She resisted him as he tried to draw her away. ‘He has adored Prince Rupert for years. He cried the night that Rupert lost Bristol.’

‘He’ll get hungry,’ John said. ‘There is loyalty and love and there is a thirteen-year-old boy’s belly. He’ll come in.’ He raised his voice. ‘We have some strawberries for dinner tonight. And Cook has made marchpane pastry to go with them. Have we got some cream too?’

‘Oh yes,’ Hester said clearly. ‘And a rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding and roasted potatoes and the allspick lettuce.’

There was a small movement from the becalmed boat.

John tucked Hester’s arm firmly under his elbow and drew her away from the bank of the pond.

‘I don’t like to leave him,’ she whispered.

John chuckled. ‘If he’s not in by the time dinner is on the table you can send me to swim out to him,’ he said. ‘It’s a pledge.’

John could make light of Johnnie’s despondency at the news of Prince Rupert’s exile, but the thought of the king in the hands of the Scots at Newcastle haunted him too. In July there was news of an English mission to try to persuade the king to come to agreement with Parliament, and all the time the king was being worked on to sign a treaty with the Scots.

‘If he cannot agree with either the English or the Scots, what will become of him?’ John asked Hester. ‘He has to give up either his right to the army and come home to England, or give up his religion and join the Scots. But he can’t just wait and do nothing.’