There was a knock on the big front door of the Ark in mid-May and Hester, putting aside her working apron, went to open it with her usual sense of apprehension. But when she saw the visitor on the doorstep her expression turned to pleasure. ‘Major Lambert!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come to see our tulips?’

‘Yes indeed. I couldn’t resist.’ He stepped into the hall and bent over her hand.

‘Is it still Major?’ she asked, looking at the rich feather in his hat and the shining leather of his boots.

‘Ah no!’ he said with a flourish. ‘I am a general now, Mrs Tradescant. And before I have done I shall sit in Parliament and bestow a baronetcy on you for your services to gardeners. Or a dukedom. Whatever you would wish.’

Hester giggled. ‘Come and see the tulips then,’ she urged. ‘They are lovely this year. My husband came back last spring and he has many new species which you will want to see, some beautiful plants from Virginia. You will never resist our tulip tree.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Hester laughed. ‘I promise. A most beautiful tree which bears white flowers shaped exactly like a tulip. I’ve not seen them yet because we have only two saplings but we have taken cuttings and my husband swears they will thrive.’

John Lambert followed her through the house and paused on the terrace to look out over the garden. It was the first time he had seen it properly weeded and pruned and looking its best.

‘This is a little piece of paradise,’ he said, his eyes going over the nodding blossoms of the fruit trees and the flowerbeds and nursery beds before the house. ‘It was well-named when you called it the Ark. It has been like a flood of terror outside these walls and yet here it always seems to be like peace.’

Hester stood very still and absorbed the compliment like a blessing. ‘I have spent my whole life trying to make it so,’ she said. ‘I am glad you can see it.’

He glanced at her as if they understood each other very well. ‘If we can make the country as peaceful and fertile as this garden, Mrs Tradescant, then it will all have been worth while. If I can make every cottage garden a safe place like this, and every hardworking man in the country with a legal right to his cottage and his garden, then I will have done my duty as well as you have done yours.’

She looked curiously at him. ‘Aren’t those Leveller sentiments?’ she asked. ‘I thought the Leveller cause was stamped out?’