Virgin Earth

October 1644, England

On a cold day in the middle of October, Alexander Norman rode to Lambeth between frosty hedges on icy tracks. Frances was on the lookout for him and ran out into the stable yard with her cape around her shoulders to take his horse and send Alexander into the parlor, to the warmth of the fire.

Hester had mulled wine to greet him. He took a deep draft and set it down. At once Hester knew that he had something important to say. “Is it peace?” she asked. “Has the king surrendered?”

“No,” he said. “He’s taken Salisbury, it looks like he’s rallying again. But it’s not that I came about. It is time for me to speak to you about another matter.”

“Frances,” Hester said, knowing at once what Alexander Norman meant.

“Frances,” he replied.

“I wrote to her father,” Hester said. “I did not tell him what you had said. But I told him of my worries about keeping her safe. I thought he might make some suggestion.” She paused. “I have not had a reply. Nothing since that consignment of Indian goods and a barrel of plants.”

“I don’t want to wait for his reply,” Alexander said. “Whether it is for me or against me.”

Hester nodded, taking in the determined tone. “Why now?” she asked. “After waiting so long?”

“Because the girl is seventeen next year, because I am fifty-five next year, because peace is as far away as ever. If she waits for peace to come she will lose her young womanhood. She might have to wait another four years, she might wait twenty.”

“Is that what they’re saying in the Tower?”

“They’re saying that the king will do anything and everything before he surrenders. He’s suffered some bitter defeats and he’s still summoning help from the Irish, from the Scots, from the French. Nothing will stop him, no defeat can stop him. He has to be king if he is anything. And he has nothing to lose by fighting and fighting forever. And Parliament cannot stop without his surrender. Lord Manchester said it himself in the House of Parliament – they have to go on fighting until the king is completely and utterly defeated, or they are lost. The two sides – King and Parliament – have made the stakes so high that one of them has to be completely defeated, there is no middle course for either anymore.”

“I see that,” Hester said.

“He has taken Salisbury this week and he still holds Oxford. As they go into winter quarters nothing is decided. I thought Marston Moor would be the end of the war but nothing will end it until Parliament is routed and the members hanged for treason, or the king dead.”

Out of habit Hester glanced at the closed door. “Hush.”

Alexander shook his head. “It’s widely said now. People in London think there’s no stopping him, no dealing with him, and the mood is getting bitter. But until he’s either killed in battle or victorious the war cannot end. I have orders for barrels for gunpowder which will supply the army for the next ten years. It will be a long war, Hester. You cannot doubt it.”

Hester poured him another glass of mulled wine.

“So I am asking for your permission to propose marriage to her,” he said. “If you refuse me permission I shall wait until she is twenty-one and can please herself.”

Hester sighed. “You can ask her now,” she said. “I promised her grandfather that I would care for her and keep her safe, and before God I cannot see how to keep her safe in these times. The garden earns nothing, and the rarities are hidden away and we have nothing to show, and no visitors to show it to. I can barely feed her, we live off fruit and vegetables from the garden. If I could pack her away safely like the precious rarities to bring out when peace comes I would do so. You can ask her, Cousin Norman, and I will abide by her decision.”

She saw his face light up like a young man’s in a blaze of joy. “And do you know how she thinks of me?” he asked. “You and she are very close. How does she speak of me?”

“With great affection,” Hester said. “But whether she loves you as a father or a friend I can’t say. And I’ve never asked. I was hoping, perhaps, that I would never have to ask. If she had met a young man, or if John had come home, or if the war ended…” She turned away from a dozen regrets. “I’ll go and fetch her.”

Frances was in the stable yard, pumping water into a bucket for Alexander’s horse.

“Your uncle wants to see you,” Hester said abruptly. She had to restrain herself from drawing the girl to her, smoothing her hair, holding her once more. “In the parlor.”

Frances heaved the full bucket into the stable and shut the door. “Is anything wrong?”

Hester kept her face pleasantly uninformative. “He wants to ask you something,” she said. “You must answer however you wish, Frances. Please remember that. Answer however you wish. And think about it. No need for haste.”

The girl looked puzzled and then turned toward the house.

In the parlor Alexander found that his throat was so tight that he could hardly breathe. As the door opened he turned around and saw Frances. She put her cape over the back of one of the chairs. She was plainly dressed in a warm gown of gray and there was a thread of hay in her hair. He took her hands.

“You’re cold,” he said.

“I was watering your horse.”

“You should not have done that. I thought Joseph was in the yard.”

“He has too much to do. We have lost all our garden boys. Johnnie and I have to help. I don’t mind it.”

His fingers again felt the calluses on her hands. “I don’t want you doing hard work.”

She smiled. “Mother said you wanted to ask me something.”

Now it came to it Alexander found that he could barely speak. “I do.”

She said nothing, waited for him. He drew her to the chair before the fire, and when she was seated he remained awkwardly standing before her. Then it was the most natural thing in the world to drop to one knee and take her cold little hand between his two palms and say gently: “Frances, I have loved you since you were a little girl and I would like you to be my wife.”

All the prepared speech he had rehearsed on the long, cold ride beside the wintry river went from his head. He forgot to caution her against accepting him, he forgot to promise her that he would always be her friend even if he could not be her husband, he forgot all the things he had thought he would say. He just waited for her answer.

She smiled at once, as if he had brought her a ribbon of exceptional magnificence. “Oh yes,” she said.

He could hardly believe that she assented so easily. At once he wanted to warn her against the wrong decision. “But I am much older than you, you should take time to think, to talk to your mother, perhaps to write to your father…”

She leaned toward him and her arms came around his neck. He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek and he drew her close and at once knew desire, and a passionate sense of protectiveness.

“I don’t need to ask anyone,” she said very quietly. “I thought you would never ask me. I have been waiting for what seems like forever. I have always known what I would say.”