Virgin Earth

April 1656

John came back to his garden, to the Ark and to his wife as the tulips were starting to fatten and show their color. The wagon rumbled across the familiar bridge and into the stable yard and Hester, looking out of the window of the rarities room at the noise, saw John sitting beside the carter and came running down the terrace and into her husband’s arms.

“I should have known you wouldn’t miss another spring,” she said. “But I didn’t really expect you till midsummer.”

“I was ready to come home,” John said. “And lucky to get a fast ship.”

They drew back a little and inspected each other, as old friends will do after a long absence. Hester’s hair under her neat cap was nearly as white as the linen, and her face was thinner and more severe. There were lines of grief on her face which would be there forever. John, aged forty-eight, was leaner and fitter than when he had gone away, the days on horseback and on foot had tanned him brown and skimmed off the fat of easy living.

“You look well, but your hair has gone white,” he said.

She gave a little smile. “It was starting to go as you left,” she said. “At Johnnie’s death.”

John nodded. “I stopped at his tomb on the way home. I felt I wanted to tell him I was back. I always promised that he would come with me on the next trip. Someone had planted little daffodils.”

“Frances,” she said. “And when the convolvulus grows she wants to plant some beside your father’s tomb so that it climbs around it. She said she wanted them both to see it.”

They left the carter and the garden boy to unload the cart and went toward the house, their arms interlinked. They walked around to the terrace and John leaned on the railing and looked down over the garden.

The flower beds at the front of the house were blushing with the color of the early tulips, beyond them the orchard was carpeted with yellow daffodils, and the white and orange of the narcissi. Above them, the cherry and apricot trees were showing little pink buds, and the thick, powerful twigs of the horse chestnuts were slowly splitting, the fat, sticky buds bursting pale and green out of their shells.

“It’s good to be home,” John said with pleasure. “What’s the news?”

“I wrote to you that Cromwell dissolved Parliament and set the army to rule over us directly.”

He nodded. “And how is that?”

Hester shrugged. “I don’t know about the rest of the country but it works well for Lambeth. They do the work the Justices of the Peace used to do, but more fairly and more evenly. They’ve closed down a lot of the ale houses and that’s nothing but good. They’re stricter with paupers and beggars and vagrants so the streets are cleaner. But the taxes!” She shook her head. “Higher than ever before and now they remember to collect them. They’re a hardworking bunch of men; and that will be their undoing. People don’t mind the Sunday sports and the maypoles going, they don’t even mind the bawdy houses closed down. But the taxes!”

“Are we in profit?” John asked, looking at the rich prosperity of the garden.

“In plants,” she said, following his gaze. “And to be honest, we’re doing well enough. Sending the Members of Parliament back to their homes has done nothing but good for us. The squires and the country gentlemen have little to do but to tend their gardens. Cromwell’s major generals are running the country, there is nothing for the gentry to attend to in London, and no work for them to do in the counties. All the work of the squires and the JPs is being done by army men. All they have left is their gardens.”

John chuckled. “It’s an ill wind.”

“Not so ill,” she reminded him. “Cromwell has brought peace to the country.”

He nodded. “Have you seen Lord Lambert? What does he say?”

“He was here just a few weeks ago to see our show of daffodils. He has a fancy for a garden in orange, gold and yellow and he wanted some bright yellow lenten lilies. He’s not a happy man. He was working on a new constitution for the country, with the backing of the army. He wanted Cromwell to become Lord Protector with an elected parliament. Then Cromwell brought in the major generals and dissolved Parliament. I think he thought that it smacked of tyranny; but he never said. He stays loyal to Cromwell-”

“He’s always loyal,” John interrupted.

“But there’s a strain,” she said. “He doesn’t like to see the army put over the people. He wants an elected parliament, not the rule of soldiers.”

John slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “And you?” he asked gently, his lips against her clean cap. “Are you well?”

She nodded, saying nothing. He did not press the question. They both knew that the answer was now and would always be that she was grieving for Johnnie. They would both always be grieving for Johnnie.

“Your friends have visited in your absence,” she said with forced brightness. “Mr. Ashmole and the others. Mr. Ashmole has been very busy working on a catalogue of the collection as you asked him to. I think it’s nearly done. It is in Latin. He showed me some pages, it looks very fine. I think you will be pleased with it. He says we can sell the catalogue at the door to guide people around the rarities room and around the garden. And that people can take it away with them to study. Gardeners can see what we are growing and write to us with orders. He says we could charge as much as two shillings.”

“And is Frances well?”

Hester nodded. “Alexander was ill this winter, a cough which wouldn’t ease. She was worried about him for a while but he is mending with the warmer weather.”

John curbed his resentment at his young daughter nursing a husband suffering from the ailments of an old man. “No signs of another baby?”

“None yet,” Hester said gently.

John nodded, glanced once more at the sunlit beauty of his garden and then turned to his house.