Virgin Earth

He shook his head, released her, and dropped into the chair by the fireside. ‘Not one that is worth mentioning,’ he said bitterly. ‘When they come to write the history of these days it will not have more than a line. We rode out like fools, thinking that we would win without having to fight. We went out like the chorus in one of his masques – all show and pretence. For all the good we were, we might as well have had swords of wood and helmets of painted paper.’

Hester was silent, shocked by his vehemence, and by the bitterness in his tone. ‘Were you hurt?’

He shook his head. ‘No – only in my pride.’ He paused. ‘Yes. Deep in my pride,’ he corrected himself.

She did not know how to question him. She turned and threw some kindling on the fire and then some small twigs and broken branches of applewood. Coal was short in London, the Tradescants were living off their land.

He leaned forward to the blaze as if he were chilled to the heart. ‘All along it has been like a masque,’ he said, as if he was gripping some truth about the king at last. ‘As if it were some pretty play with a script which everyone was to follow. The threat of Parliament, the flight from London, his parting with the queen when he rode along the cliffs waving to her ship and wept, the ride north to victory. It has all been a masque – beautifully costumed. But when the time came for the king to defeat his enemies –’ He broke off.

‘What happened?’ Hester kneeled at the fire and kept her eyes on the flames, afraid to interrupt him.

‘The chorus didn’t arrive,’ John said sourly. ‘The engines which should show Jove descending or Neptune rising up from the sea failed to work. Instead of the gates of Hull opening and the governor coming out with the golden key on a velvet cushion and some poetry from Ben Jonson, it all went wrong. The gates opened and the soldiers came out and just went fire … reload … fire … reload … like dancers – but they weren’t doing our dance. They were following another script. And … and …’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know what the end of this play will be.’

‘The king?’ she asked in a little whisper.

‘The king is sticking to his masque,’ John said savagely. ‘Act two was raising the royal standard. But the weather was all wrong. It should have been balmy skies or perhaps a bright comet overhead. Instead it poured with rain on him and we looked like sodden fools. But he will not realise that the scenes are going wrong. He thinks it is a rehearsal, he thinks it will be the greater on the night if it all goes wrong now.’

‘And what of you?’ she asked softly.

‘I am finished with him,’ John said. ‘I am finished with his service. I went back into his service to please my father and because I longed to work on the great gardens which are in his gift, and besides, when I was a young man there was almost nowhere else to work but for the king or the court. But I will die in his service if I go on. I am a gardener and he would not give me leave to go and garden. He has to have everyone in the masque, everyone has to carry a standard or a spear. He will never cease with this until we are all dead, or all defeated, or all persuaded that he is the Lord’s Anointed and can do no wrong.’

Hester quickly looked towards the kitchen door, but it was safely closed and all the household was still asleep.

‘I saw my father go out to certain death in the service of the Duke of Buckingham, and I saw him ride home, spared only by the death of his master,’ John continued. ‘I saw his eyes on that day. He never recovered from the death of the Duke. He was never his own man again. The loss of the Duke lay like a shadow over our family, and my father was torn between relief that he had survived and grief that the Duke was dead.

‘I swore then that I would never be like that, I swore I would never pledge myself to follow a man until death, and I meant it. I will never be a servant like that. Not even for the king. Especially not for this king, who cannot reward service and never says that he has had enough. He will not stop until every one of his servants is lying dead before him, and then he will expect a miracle from God himself to raise up more foot soldiers for his insatiable theatre. I will have no more of it. I can bear no more of it.’

‘You won’t join with Parliament?’ Hester asked, aghast. ‘Oh, John, you won’t fight against the king?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not a turncoat. I won’t fight against him. I’ve eaten his bread and he has called me his friend. I’ve seen him weep and I’ve kissed his hand. I won’t betray him. But I won’t play that part in this damned mockery.’

‘Will you stay here, quiet at home with us?’ she asked. She had a low sinking feeling in the pit of her belly. She knew that he would not.

‘How can I?’ he demanded of her. ‘People know who I am. They will ask me who I serve. I won’t deny him – I’m not a Judas. And he will send for me.’ He nodded. ‘Sooner or later he will realise that I am not at court and he will send for me again.’

‘Then what shall we do?’

‘We’ll go to Virginia,’ John said with decision. ‘All of us. We’ll take ship as soon as we can get a passage. We’ll take what we can carry and leave the rest. Leave the house and the garden and even the rarities. We’ll get out of this country and leave it to tear itself to pieces. I won’t see it. I won’t be here. I can’t bear it.’

Hester sat very still and measured the despair in her husband’s voice against her love for him, and her love for their home.

‘Will you have a glass of ale?’ she asked.

He lifted his gaze from the fire, as if he suddenly remembered where he was. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And then let’s go to bed. I have wanted you in my bed for night after long night, Hester. I have missed you, and thought of you here, missing me. I have wanted you and cursed the miles that were between us. And in the morning I shall see my children and we’ll tell them that we are leaving.’

‘You have wanted me?’ she asked, very low.

He put his hand out and turned her face up to him, one gentle finger under her chin. ‘Knowing that you are here has kept me going through one dark night after another,’ he said. ‘Knowing that you are here and that I have someone to come home to. Knowing that you will open your bed to me, and open your arms to me, and that whatever is going wrong all around me, I have somewhere that I can call my home.’

She could have moved forwards, she could have kneeled before him as he sat in his chair, he would have drawn her to him and on to his lap and he would have kissed her, as he had never yet kissed her, and they could have gone to bed as he wanted to do, and as she had wanted to do from the moment she had first seen him.

But Hester caught hold of her determination, forced herself to wait, and drew back from him, drew back and sat on her seat on the other side of the fireplace.

‘Now wait a minute,’ she said. ‘Not so fast, husband. I cannot leave here.’

For a moment John did not hear her. He was so conscious of the fall of her nightgown, and of her dark hair only half-hidden by her cap, of the play of the firelight on her neck and the glimpse of her shoulder. ‘What?’

‘I cannot leave here,’ she said steadily. ‘This is my home.’

‘You don’t understand,’ he said abruptly. ‘I have made up my mind. I have to go. I cannot stay here, I will be torn apart by the two of them – king and Parliament. Parliament will have me out entrenching and drilling for their defence, and the king will summon me to court. I cannot be faithless to them both. I cannot watch the king ride into war as if it were a masqued ball. I cannot stay in England and see him die!’

‘And I cannot leave.’ She spoke steadfastly, as if nothing would ever move her.

‘You are my wife,’ John reminded her.

She bowed her head.

‘You owe me absolute obedience,’ he said. ‘I am your master before God.’

‘As the king is yours,’ she said gently. ‘Isn’t that what this war is all about?’

He hesitated. ‘I thought you wanted to be my wife?’

‘I do. I agreed to be your wife, and to rear your children, and to care for the rarities and the garden and the Ark. How can I do these things in Virginia?’

‘You can care for me and the children.’

Hester shook her head. ‘I won’t take the children there. You know yourself how dangerous it is there. There are wild Indians, and hunger, dreadful disease. I won’t take the children into danger.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And I won’t leave here.’