‘One little garden, more like a farm than a garden,’ he said dismissively. ‘We’re getting a grand reputation for growing onions. This is nothing to a family which had Oatlands, or Hatfield, or Theobalds. Even Wimbledon. All we have now is a tiny patch of ground and no-one plants great gardens any more.’

‘They will do again,’ she said. ‘The country is at peace once more, they will plant gardens again.’

‘They’ll plant turnips,’ Johnnie predicted. ‘And marrows. Like father is growing for them. I saw Oatlands Palace and I saw them uproot it, rose by rose. And now the building is pulled down and they made a canal bed with the stone. They didn’t even try to make another building of beauty. There’s nothing for me to do with my life, there’s nothing to do in this country any more. I am a gardener, a gardener who needs great palaces. A physic garden and a vegetable patch is not enough for me.’

‘You’ll find something,’ Hester urged him. ‘You’ll find your own way, even if it is not our garden, nor a garden fit for a king. You’re young, you will find your way.’

‘I’ll never be a king’s gardener in England,’ he said slowly. ‘That was my inheritance and now I can’t have it. There is nothing left for me.’

The boat was drifting away a little to the other side of the lake. Hester paused, taking in the tranquillity of the scene: the sky slowly turning from blue to indigo, the colour of Tradescant spiderwort. The stars were like silver pin-heads against navy cloth. The evening air was cool against her cheek, sweet with the scent of windfall apples, and late-flowering wallflowers.

‘We spent hours and hours here together when you were a little boy,’ she said tenderly. ‘You used to beg to come down here to feed the ducks. D’you remember?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘I remember feeding the ducks.’

She waited, and when he did not say any more, she rose to her feet. ‘Shall I stay with you?’ she asked him tenderly. ‘Would you like some company?’

‘No,’ he said and his voice seemed to come from a long way over the still water. ‘I’ll spend a little time on my own, Mother. I’ll come home when I can be merry again.’

Johnnie was not at breakfast.

‘Where is he?’ John demanded. ‘I would have expected him to apologise to Lord Lambert last night.’

‘He may have gone into Lambeth and had a late night,’ Hester replied diplomatically and she spoke over her shoulder to Cook. ‘Would you call Johnnie, Cook?’

Mary Ashmole, a paying guest for the season, helped herself to a slice of ham. ‘Young men,’ she remarked indulgently.