‘Have you thought what you would like to do?’ John asked his daughter gently. ‘Have you thought where you would like to live? Alexander left you well-provided, and you can sell this house. The sale of the business is already agreed.’

‘I had thought,’ she said. ‘If you would allow it – I should like to come home.’

‘To the Ark?’

‘Yes.’

John found that he was beaming with delight. ‘That would give me much joy,’ he said simply.

Autumn 1658

In early September John was wakened at dawn by the noise of the rising wind.

‘I’m glad I’m not at sea today,’ he said to Hester.

He went to the window and saw the trees in the orchard and the avenue flailing their boughs at the sky where the clouds raced overhead.

‘Come back to bed,’ Hester said sleepily.

There was a clatter from the stable yard.

‘I’m awake now,’ John said. ‘I’ll get up and see that everything’s safe. We’re in for a storm.’

He spent the day with the lad and Joseph pinning back the creepers and staking the plants which were already rocking in the earth, pulling at their roots. Frances took a sharp knife and went around the garden mercilessly pruning the climbing roses so that the long boughs would not tear the stalks from the soil. She came in for dinner at midday with her arms scratched above her gloves and her hair tumbled about her shoulders.

‘Frances Norman,’ said Hester, disapprovingly.

‘It’s wild out there,’ Frances said. ‘My cap blew off.’

‘I can see that,’ Hester said.

‘We’re going to lose half the apples,’ John said irritably. ‘What a foul wind.’

‘And the plums,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll pick as many as I can get this afternoon.’

‘I’ll come out and help,’ said Hester. ‘I don’t expect any visitors this afternoon, no-one would take a boat on the river unless they had to.’

John had thought that the wind might drop as night fell; but it grew stronger and wilder, and it started to rain. Hester went round the house fastening shutters but still they could hear the thud of the wind against the leaded panes of glass, and in the rarities room they could see the great panes creaking as they moved in their frames.

‘I hope to God they don’t crack,’ John said. ‘We’ll close the shutters behind them, then at least if they smash the rarities will still have some protection. If I had thought I could have boarded up the house this morning.’

They had an ill-cooked supper. A great gust of wind had come down the chimney and blown soot all around the kitchen. While they ate they heard the clatter of a slate falling from the roof into the stable yard.