“I am that old,” he said.

Hester thought that the assertion must be costing him dear.

“I am old enough to be your father.”

Frances’s surprised ripple of laughter made him smile. “I think of you as my friend!” she exclaimed.

“Well, I was your grandfather’s friend before you were born. I bounced you on my knee when you were a dribbling little baby.”

She nodded. “I don’t see that makes any difference at all,” she said, and Hester wondered, but did not ask: “Difference to what?”

Alexander did not neglect Johnnie or Hester on his visits. He brought Johnnie pamphlets and ballads about his hero Prince Rupert, and he brought Hester welcome news of the progress of the war. He spoke of a new commander, Colonel Cromwell, who had come from nowhere and was said to be little more than a working man, but who had a regiment of soldiers that could withstand a royalist cavalry charge and who had been trained and drilled until they could turn and stand and march forward on one shouted command.

“I think this Cromwell knows his business as well as Prince Rupert,” Alexander said.

Johnnie shook his head. “Prince Rupert has fought all around Europe,” he said certainly. “And he was riding horses, great cavalry chargers, when he was my age. No one from East Anglia could say the same.”

The news from the king’s court at Oxford was of riotous loose living, of scholars and courtiers drunk in the gutters every morning, and of the king celebrating victory after victory, however small the skirmish and insignificant the campaign. It looked as if the kingdom was opening up to him and he would be in London within a year. And then he started his march on his rebellious capital city itself. Alexander Norman sent a message to the Ark at Lambeth.

Dear Cousin Hester,

I suggest that you hide your most precious treasures in your safe place and pack necessary clothes and goods for yourself. The king is marching on London from the north and the City is preparing for a siege. However, if the king should circle London to besiege it, then I should think it most likely that Lambeth will fall and the Parliamentary forces stand back and hold their ground north of the river. If the fighting is prolonged then you may well be caught between two armies. Therefore, be ready to leave the moment I give you the word and I will take you back to Oatlands.

Alexander

Hester put the letter at once into the tiny fire of coal dust and kindling and watched it burn sluggishly. She felt very tired, as if the war had gone on forever, and would go on forever, without victory, without peace, with nothing but the wearisome task of surviving. For a moment she sat by the fireside, her head leaning on her hand, watching the note flame, turn to ash, and then fall in soft flakes into the red embers. Then she gave herself a little shake, brushed off her skirt, tied on her hessian working apron and went to the rarities room.

Johnnie was showing a visitor out of the front door.

“What is it, Mother?” he asked as soon as the door was safely closed. “Not bad news from Virginia?”

She shook her head. “Not that, thank God. It is a note from your uncle. He says that the king is marching on London and that we must be prepared to leave if the fighting comes close. We must pack up the most precious things for safety at once.”

He nodded, his little face grave. “I’ll call Frances,” he said. “We’ll all help.”

Frances came down from her room, her hair pinned in a new style. “How do I look?”

“Awful ugly,” Johnnie said with a grin.

Hester was drawing out the big wooden chests which were stored beneath the display cases. “You pack the glass and porcelain, Frances, you’re the most careful. Johnnie, you pack the coins.”

Hester unlocked the cases and then started folding and packing the clothes, vests and coats from all around the world, savages’ clothes of feathers and beads, beautifully worked scarves from India and China, and King Henry’s own gloves which King Charles himself had given to the Tradescants. She glanced over, Johnnie was carefully laying every coin with its label in the chest.

“You’ll have to just pile them in,” she said. “And when we unpack them we’ll have to label them again.”

His little face was shocked. The order of the rarities room had been a sacred charge for the whole family for all of his life. “But these are Grandfather John’s labels!”

“I know,” Hester said grimly. “And I hope that he would understand that we’re doing the best that we can to keep his Ark and all its contents safe. Just tumble all the coins in the chest, Johnnie, and then we can hide it and, even if a dozen regiments come through, when the war is over we can dig it all up and start again.”

He looked reluctant, but did as he was told. Frances, at the other side of the room, was wrapping precious pieces of glass in silks and scarves, and packing them tightly in a wooden box.

Hester looked around the room. It was a collection that had been amassed over years of work, all she could do was to choose the most precious pieces from it and try to save them. “The little toys,” she said to Frances. “The mechanical toys. Do them next.”

“What about the mermaid’s tail?” Johnnie asked. “And the whale’s jaw?”

“We can’t even lift them,” Frances said. “What will we do? How can we hide them in safety?”

“I don’t know,” Hester said. Her hands kept moving, packing, folding, smoothing, but her voice was full of despair and weariness. “We just pack everything we can, I suppose. And for the rest? I don’t know.”

At night Hester and the children and the gardener, Joseph, carried the boxes carefully to the ice house, and stacked them inside. The ice house was lined with brick, it was damp and dark. Frances shivered and pulled her hood over her head, fearing spiders and bats. The boxes filled the small circular room. When they came out they nailed up the door. Hester had an odd, superstitious feeling that it was as if they were mourners before the family vault and that all that was most precious to them had been buried.

“I’ll plant a couple of shrubs before it tomorrow,” Joseph promised, “and grow some ivy over the door. In a month or so you won’t know it’s there.”

“I hope we have a month or so,” Hester said. “Cut some branches and lay them over the door to hide it while the ivy is growing. And put a couple of saplings in.”

“Is the king’s army coming so soon?” Joseph asked.

“The king himself is coming,” Hester said grimly. “And please God that whether he wins or loses the battle is over swiftly and the winners bring the country back to peace, because I don’t think I can bear another year like this one.”

Within days in the city of London everything was rationed and nothing could be bought. The king’s army was coming down the Great North Road and no wagons could get into London to feed the people. The Lord Mayor of London himself set up distribution points where people could buy food and set fair prices so that racketeers could not profit from the city’s desperation. Joseph was drafted out every day to dig trenches to protect the city from the cavalry, and there was even an inquiry from the local commander of the trained bands as to how old Johnnie might be, and when he would be old enough to serve.

Johnnie, with his home under siege from the king, was wild to sneak out at night and get to the king’s army. “I could be a scout,” he said. “I could be a spy. I could tell the king where the ditches are dug, where the cannon are mounted. He needs me, I should go to him.”

“Be quiet,” Hester snapped. The sense of an impending disaster for the house and the children she loved was wearing her patience very thin. “The king has enough fools running to his standard. You are a child. You will stay home like an obedient child.”