‘I shall go to Oatlands this week,’ John remarked the very next morning at breakfast. Hester, seated beside Baby John, looked up in surprise. ‘This week?’

He met her gaze with bland incomprehension. ‘Yes.’

‘So soon?’

‘Why not?’

A dozen reasons why a newly wed husband should not leave his home in the first week of his marriage came to her. She folded her lips tightly on them. ‘People may think it looks odd,’ was all that she said.

‘They can think what they like,’ John retorted bluntly. ‘We married so that I should be free to do my work and that is what I am doing.’

Hester glanced at Frances, seated at her left, opposite Baby John. Frances’s white-capped head was bowed over her bowl, she did not look up at her father, she affected to be deaf.

‘There is the planting of the spring bulbs to finish,’ he said. ‘And pruning, and planning for winter. I have to make sure the silkworm house is sound against the weather. I shall be a month or so away. If you are in any need you can send for me.’

Hester bowed her head. John rose from his place and went to the door. ‘I shall be in the orchard,’ he said. ‘Please pack my clothes for me to go to Oatlands and tell the boy I shall want a horse this afternoon. I shall ride down to the docks and see if anything has come in for the king’s collection.’

Hester nodded and she and the two children sat in silence until the door closed behind John.

Frances looked up, her lower lip turned down. ‘I thought he would stay home all the time now you are married.’

‘Never mind!’ Hester said with assumed cheerfulness. ‘We’ll have lots to do. There’s a bonfire to build for Guy Fawkes’s day, and then Christmas to prepare for.’

‘But I thought he would stay home,’ Frances persisted. ‘He will come home for Christmas, won’t he?’

‘Of course,’ Hester said easily. ‘Of course he will. But he has to go and work for the queen in her lovely gardens. He’s a royal gardener! He can’t stay home all the time.’

Baby John looked up and wiped his milky moustache on his sleeve.

‘Use your napkin,’ Hester corrected him.

Baby John grinned. ‘I shall go to Oatrands,’ he said firmly. ‘Pranting and pranning and pruning. I shall go.’

‘Certainly,’ Hester said, and she emphasised the correct pronunciation: ‘Planting and planning and pruning are most important.’

Baby John nodded with dignity. ‘Now I shall go and look at my warities.’

‘Can I take the money from the visitors?’ Frances asked.