The Silk Weaver Read online

  For my two wonderful daughters, Becky and Polly

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  LONDON 1760

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  EPILOGUE

  A note on the history that inspired The Silk Weaver

  PROLOGUE

  Anna rests her head on the cushion and traces her finger along the stems of daisies and the nodding heads of bluebells embroidered onto its calico cover. The silken threads, though worn and coming loose in places, still hold their colours and gleam in the sunshine.

  ‘Bluebells and daisies,’ she sings to a familiar nursery rhyme tune. ‘Bluebells and daisies. They all grow here, they all grow here.’

  They are seated together on the old chaise longue in the window of the vicarage sitting room. This is where her mother likes to work at her embroidery, although she has to hold the frame further away than normal because her belly is so huge and round these days. She says that it is because she is growing a new brother or sister but Anna cannot believe it possible that there could really be a child inside her mother’s body.

  She is bored. Because of this baby bump they cannot go for their usual walks together across the heath or down to the marshes to collect wild flowers for pressing, as her mother says it gives her backache. Neither can they do much gardening, which Anna also adores. She loves getting her hands dirty making soft beds in the black earth into which they scatter tiny seeds. She cannot believe that these little specks will grow into beautiful flowers next year, but her mother promises they will, just like she’s promised about the baby.

  ‘Wait and see, my little one,’ she says. ‘Have patience and you will find my words are true.’

  Although she is only five, Anna has already learned to name many wild flowers and some garden varieties, too. The ones she finds easiest to remember are those which perfectly describe the flowers themselves and seem to roll off the tongue: love-in-a-mist, snapdragon, foxglove, harebell, forget-me-not, wallflower, ox-eye daisy. Others she finds more difficult to pronounce and has to say over and over again before they come out right: delphinium, convolvulus, asphodel, hellebore.

  She returns her attention to the cushion. How different these two flowers are: the perky little daisy with its open face of tiny white petals around a yellow nose; the closed heads of the bluebells – more purple than blue, she thinks – hanging from a stem that seems barely able to carry their weight.

  ‘What flower would you like to be?’ she asks her mother. ‘A daisy or a bluebell?’

  ‘A bluebell, because it smells so sweet.’

  ‘I’d rather be a happy daisy than a droopy bluebell,’ Anna says. ‘Besides, daisies flower all summer, and bluebells are only here for a few weeks.’ She hums the little rhyme to herself a few times and kicks her feet.

  ‘When will you teach me how to sew flowers like you do?’

  ‘Sit up, and I will show you right now,’ her mother says.

  She puts the needle between the thumb and finger of Anna’s right hand, guiding it with her own fingers. Then she helps Anna’s other hand hold the frame flat, just like she does.

  ‘We are doing a simple chain stitch for the stem,’ she says, guiding the hand with the needle so that it pierces the calico just so. The needle disappears, pulling the green silk behind it, and then is pushed through from the back, emerging, as if by magic, just beside where they made the previous stitch. They do it again, and a third time, and Anna can see how the stem is growing before her very eyes.

  But when she insists on trying without her mother’s guiding hand, everything goes wrong. The stitches go everywhere and the needle loses its thread. She throws it down in a temper.

  ‘I hate sewing,’ she grumbles. ‘Can we do drawing instead?’

  Just then, her mother’s body seems to go rigid, and she gives a sharp gasp. ‘Run to the church and fetch your father,’ she says through clenched teeth. ‘Quick as you can. I think the baby is coming.’

  Even years later, Anna cherishes the memory of that day and that inconsequential conversation with her mother. Perhaps it was important because this was the last time that she had her mother to herself, before Jane arrived. But what she remembers most, as clear as if it were yesterday, is the cushion with its embroidered flowers, and the silks glimmering in the sunshine.

  1

  There are many little civilities which a true gentleman will offer to a lady travelling alone, which she may accept with perfect propriety; but, while careful to thank him courteously, avoid any advance toward acquaintanceship.

  – The Lady’s Book of Manners, 1760

  The carriage pulled to a sudden halt, and for a moment Anna dared to imagine that they had arrived.

  But something was wrong. In the distance could be heard a great deal of commotion: deep-voiced male shouts and the screech of women’s voices. They could see nothing from the windows and no one came to open the door. The four travelling companions sat without speaking, trying not to catch each other’s eyes. Only the silent sighs of irritation and tiny tics – the tapping of toes, the drumming of fingers – suggested that this delay was out of the ordinary.

  After a few minutes the gentleman of the middling sort cleared his throat impatiently, took his cane and knocked briskly on the ceiling of the carriage – rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. There was no response. He leaned out and hollered upwards.

  ‘Coachman, why are we stopped?’

  ‘We’ll be on our way shortly, sir.’ He did not sound convinced.

  They waited a few moments longer, until the gentleman huffed and sighed again, stood up and let himself out of the coach, telling his son to stay with the ladies. Anna heard him exchange words with the coachman, and five further minutes passed. When he climbed back inside, his cheeks were so flushed she feared he might be about to suffer a choleric turn.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, ladies.’ His tone was falsely calm. ‘May I suggest, however, that you pull down the blinds.’

  The carriage began to jerk backwards, forwards and sideways with such violent movements that the four of them were thrown about like butter in a churn. It seemed that the coachman was attempting the almost impossible task of turning around a coach and four on this narrow highway.

  The shouting outside became louder. It was hard to make out any words, but at times it took on the rhythm of a chant, angry and menacing. What sounded like stones seemed to clatter on the cobbles around them and, even more alarmingly, against the carriage itself. One of the horses whinnied sharply as if in pain. The hollering came closer now, and Anna could make out a single syllable repeated again and again. It was shocking how such a plain, everyday word could sound so very threatening in the voice of an enraged crowd.

  The coachman was hollering too, urging the horses to push on, pull back, hold hard. Everyone inside the coach remained tensely silent as they tried to brace themselves against the jolts. Both gentlemen stared fixedly forwards; the lady turned her face downwards towards her lap, her eyes sealed tightly as if in prayer.

  Although she too was trying to remain outwardly composed, Anna could hear her own heart hammering in her chest and her knuckles, clutching onto the strap above the window, shone white in the gloom of the interior. She began to wonder whether this sort of thing was a regular occurrence in the city; she had heard there were demonstrations and mobs that could become violent, but never thought for a mo
ment that she might directly encounter one.

  Finally the carriage set off again at a great lick, but with the blinds still drawn it was impossible to see in which direction they were now travelling. ‘My dear sir, please tell us what was happening,’ the lady said, looking up at last, her breathing ragged. ‘Do I understand that our coach was the object of the commotion?’

  ‘Have no fear, my dear lady,’ the gentleman said smoothly. ‘We were in no danger. There was an obstruction in the road. The coachman has decided to try another route into the city.’ The colour of his face had returned to normal, but Anna didn’t believe a word.

  ‘But why would they be shouting about bread?’ she ventured. ‘And why would they choose strangers as the focus of such an attack?’

  ‘It is not for us to presume.’ He pursed his lips and would not be drawn further, so the four lapsed into another heavy silence.

  Now, she began to worry about their delayed arrival. Cousin William was due to meet her at the Red Lyon public house, but how could she get word to him that they were well over an hour late? She had eaten nothing but a slice of bread and a small lump of cheese since breakfast and her stomach was rumbling so loudly that she feared that her companions would hear it, even over the clatter of wheels on the cobbled street.

  At last the coach pulled to a halt and she heard the shout, ‘Spitalfields Red Lyon, Miss Butterfield.’

  She climbed stiffly from the carriage and waited while her luggage was unloaded from the rear and placed beside her. In just seconds, the coachman shouted a cheery farewell and they were gone. The carriage and its passengers had become a haven of safety and protection and as she watched it turn the corner and disappear from view she felt abandoned and a little afraid. She was on her own in this great city.

  Around Anna and her cases flowed a seemingly unending stream of people. Some walked at a leisurely pace in twos and threes, absorbed in conversation, while others, apparently engaged on urgent errands, scurried quickly, dodging between the groups.

  She found herself entranced by the cries of the street pedlars. A woman waved a bunch of sweet-smelling herbs in front of people’s noses, shouting, ‘Buy my rosemary! Buy my sweetbriar! A farthing a bunch to sweeten your home.’ Some cries even sounded like poetry: ‘Pears for pies! Come feast your eyes! Ripe pears, of every size, who’ll buy?’

  In her village, people would stop to gossip with travelling salesmen – it was one of the best ways of discovering what was going on in neighbouring villages, who had died, who had married, who had borne children and how the hay, corn and fruit harvests were faring. But here in the city it appeared that everyone was too busy to chat.

  Every kind of produce seemed to be for sale: boxes and baskets, brushes and brooms, Morocco slippers, matches, saucepans, wooden spoons and nutmeg graters, doormats, chickweed and groundsel for bird seed, oysters, herring, ropes of onions, strawberries, rhubarb and all manner of other fruit and vegetables and, most enticing of all, delicious-smelling hot loaves, baked potatoes and meat pies that made her stomach rumble all the more.

  Apart from the traders and a few beggars, no one was taking the slightest notice of her. A lone woman waiting on the roadside in the country would have received several offers of help within a few moments. Here, it was as if she were invisible, or something inanimate like a statue or an island around which the human river was forced to navigate. Among this mass of people her presence was of no consequence at all. I could disappear, she thought, and no one would ever be the wiser. It was a curious feeling, both frightening and freeing all at once.

  And the noise! The clatter of drays and carriages across the cobbles, the shouts of hawkers and women hollering at their children. In the hubbub it took a little while to make sense of any words, and now Anna began to realise why: much of it was not in English.

  She looked around. Across the road, although it was not yet dusk, a crowd of drinkers had gathered at the Red Lyon Inn, spilling into the street, tankards in hand, engaged in conversations animated with much raucous laughter.

  Behind her, high brick arches fronted the pavement and, through them, she could see a cavernous interior dense with tables and other wooden structures. It looked like a market, but Anna had never seen such an expanse of stalls. Just two dozen filled the square at Halesworth, even at Michaelmas, yet there looked to be well over one hundred here. Although trading had ended for the day and the stalls were now empty, pungent smells of herbs and vegetables, stale fish and rotting meat wafted across the road.

  Minutes ticked by on the cracked-faced clock above the market. Her stays were tight, her stomach empty, she had a raging thirst and she was beginning to feel light-headed. She shifted her weight from toe to heel and from foot to foot as she had learned during long hours at church, and prayed that William would come soon.

  Time passed and she fell into a kind of reverie. The next thing she knew, she seemed to be on the ground, vaguely aware of someone kneeling by her side and cradling her head, with another person standing close on the other side, fanning her with his cap. It took her a few moments to understand where she was.

  ‘Oh dear, I am so sorry to be a nuisance,’ she mumbled, starting to push herself up.

  ‘Do not be troubled,’ the young man said. ‘We are keeping you safe.’ He spoke something unintelligible to his companion who disappeared, returning shortly with a cup of water which she sipped gratefully.

  ‘Are you having a home?’ the young man asked. ‘A family? Or a friend, perhaps?’

  ‘I am come to stay with my uncle, Joseph Sadler of Spital Square,’ she said, her wits now slowly returning, ‘and my cousin William was to meet me here.’ The young man spoke some further incomprehensible words to his friend, who left them again.

  A glorious thought slipped into her confused mind: perhaps they were speaking in tongues, just as the Apostles described? She’d always considered it an unlikely story – just an allegory, like so many tales in the Bible – but something rather like it did indeed seem to be happening to her. She smiled to herself. The Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways.

  A crowd had gathered now, but with this young man’s arms around her she felt curiously unafraid. She could see that he was clean-shaven and gentle of demeanour. His eyes were the deepest brown, like horse chestnuts freshly released from their cases. Although wigless and not, as far as she could see, dressed as a gentleman, his dark hair was neatly tied back, and he spoke to her tenderly and smiled often, to reassure her. There was a sweet, musty smell about him; not unpleasant but strange, nothing she could recognise.

  The second boy returned, panting, ‘He come.’ Not wanting her cousin to find her on the ground, and since she was now feeling considerably recovered, Anna tried to stand. The two young men gently put their arms around her waist to help her up.

  At that moment a loud shout came from the edge of the crowd. ‘Make way, make way. Let me by.’ As William appeared – for indeed it was he, a tall, thin-faced young man in a powdered wig – his face darkened.

  ‘How dare you? Take your hands off the young lady at once,’ he bellowed, and a fist whipped past Anna’s nose into the boy’s face. He grunted and fell away, nearly taking her with him but for the strong left hand of William holding her arm painfully tight. He aimed another punch at the second boy, who fell in an untidy heap at their feet. The crowd gasped and drew back.

  ‘Now get out of my sight, cabbage heads,’ William bawled, lashing out with his boots as the crowd tried to drag the boys to safety, ‘and if I ever catch you touching an English lady again, I’ll string you up by your webbed feet.’

  ‘Do not be so harsh, Cousin,’ Anna whispered, shocked by his violent response. ‘They were helping me. I had fainted from the heat.’

  ‘Dirty frogs,’ he growled, barking instructions about the baggage to a man with a pushcart. ‘You should never have allowed it. You have much to learn about how a young lady should comport herself in the city.’

  ‘Yes, I expect I do,’ Anna said, i
n what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. He grabbed her arm again and began to drag her along the road with such haste that she had to trot to keep up.

  ‘Hurry along, Anna Butterfield. We have been waiting for hours. I cannot imagine why you did not send word of your arrival earlier. Had you done so you would not have caused this trouble. You are most terribly late and supper has gone cold.’

  Fortunately it was but a few minutes – at William’s pace – from the Red Lyon to Spital Square. They stopped outside a house with a wide shop frontage: bow windows either side of a grand front door set with bottle-glass, and double pillars that supported a porch to shelter callers from the rain. On a board hanging below the porch was written in elegant gold script: Joseph Sadler & Son, Mercers to the Gentry. They were here at last.

  She turned to go up the steps, but William grabbed her arm once more and pulled her onwards, opening a smaller side door that led into the darkness of a long entrance hall. They passed two doors on the ground floor – probably leading into the shop area, she assumed – up some stairs to a wide landing, and through yet another door into the dining room.

  Uncle Joseph stepped forward first, welcoming her with a formal handshake and a smile that disappeared as soon as it had arrived, as though it were an infrequent and unexpected visitor. He was a daunting figure: tall and portly, whiskered and bewigged even at home, high-collared and tail-coated, with a well-rounded stomach held tight under his embroidered silk waistcoat. He must once have been a handsome man but good living had taken its toll. His jowls drooped and wobbled like a turkey’s wattle.

  ‘Welcome, dear Niece,’ he said. ‘We hope you will be happy here.’ He waved his hand proprietorially around the sumptuously furnished room, in the centre of which a deeply polished oak table laden with silver glistened in the light of many candles.

  Anna dipped her knee. ‘I am indebted to you, sir, for your generous hospitality,’ she said.

  Aunt Sarah seemed a kindly sort with a smile that, unlike her husband’s, appeared quite accustomed to her face. She kissed Anna on both cheeks. ‘You poor thing, you look weary,’ she said, standing back to regard her up and down. ‘And your clothes . . .’ She gave a little sigh and her eyes turned away as if the sight of Anna’s dress was too terrible to contemplate, even though it was her Sunday best. ‘Never mind. You shall have supper now and a good rest after your long journey. Tomorrow we can see about your wardrobe.’