The Dressmaker of Draper's Lane Read online

  LIZ TRENOW

  The Dressmaker of Draper’s Lane

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  LONDON 1768

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  A note on the history that inspired The Dressmaker of Draper’s Lane

  Acknowledgements

  The Silk Weaver

  This book is dedicated to Elsie, Fox and Gil

  PROLOGUE

  She is unaware of her legs moving beneath her, of one foot taking a step and then another, except for the fact that the great gates in the distance seem to be drawing ever closer.

  Her mind is blank. She keeps her eyes lowered to the ground, passing silently through the crowds on Gray’s Inn Road like a spectre. No one notices her and she dares not allow herself to look at her surroundings nor even to think, for if she did she would surely turn and flee. The only notion in her head is that where she is going offers the sole hope of saving her child’s life.

  The bundle in her arms is still and silent now, having ceased whimpering some hours ago. The baby is too feeble to cry any more. It is of no matter to her that she has not eaten for several days except that it has caused her milk to become thin and weak.

  This child is the single most precious thing she has ever known. How can she bear to give her up? Yet how can she bear to let her die?

  At first the solution seemed simple. She would end both of their lives together, so they could never be parted. Several times she has returned to Blackfriars Bridge, watching the dark, cold waters swirling below and trying to summon the courage to jump. But first she must climb onto the parapet, which means freeing her hands by laying down the bundle on the edge of the bridge, and even this momentary separation seems too dangerous to contemplate. What if the child should slip into the river without her? Who would hold her tight as she fell, whispering reassurances that although the water would be cold and the journey difficult, everything would be fine when they reached the other side? Would she even have the courage to follow her?

  Each time she has left the bridge feeling foolish and tearful, trudging the weary path back to the city, still no clearer about what the future might hold.

  Until they told her about the Foundling Hospital. It’s a place just opened up, where they will look after babies until their mothers can go back for them, they said.

  Now she is aware of passing a long brick wall to her right-hand side and a building, the gatehouse, flanked by two brick sentry boxes. A man gives her a cursory glance and nods her through. She emerges onto a wide gravelled driveway with well-trimmed lawns either side. In the far distance, or so it seems to her, is what looks like a palace; a vast building of many windows, more than she can count. Two wings of this building reach towards her and, as she walks, start to surround her like a funnel drawing her inexorably towards her fate.

  Ahead is surely the main entrance, although it looks more like a temple than a home for children. Leading up to it is a wide set of steps on which, as she now approaches, she can see gathered a group of figures, maybe a couple of dozen; bedraggled, bewildered women, their faces hidden by shawls, all carrying bundles in their arms. Women like herself.

  She joins the throng – it is too untidy to be considered a queue – and waits. No one knows what they are waiting for and no one talks to each other. The group is silent save for the occasional heart-rending cry of a child, and the sound of muffled weeping. Hunger and heat cause her to hallucinate: she is waiting at the gates of heaven and they are about to open. She and her child will live in the light of God’s goodness forever. But this blissful illusion is shattered by the sound of the wooden doors being unbolted, and a man shouting: ‘Form an orderly queue, ladies, please. Don’t push. You will all be seen.’

  Despite his exhortations the women press forward, holding out their bundles, pleading: ‘Take my baby’, ‘Please, save my child’, ‘He is a good lad and strong, take him.’

  The man stands firm, insisting that he will not allow anyone inside until they have obeyed his instruction. ‘You know what a queue is, ladies? One at a time. Yes, that’s it, get into a row.’ At last they are formed into an orderly line of which she takes up the rear. She is about to give up and turn away, thinking that surely they will take the first babies first and she has no chance, when he calls out, kindly. ‘Come back, dearie. Didn’t I promise that everyone would be seen? That includes you, if you’re prepared to be patient.’ She falls obediently back into line and shuffles forward as the queue moves through into a large hallway, and then into a high-ceilinged room grander than any she has ever seen before.

  Even more surprising than the grandeur of the place is the number of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen in this room. She cannot imagine what they are doing here. They stand and sit around the walls of the room, chatting among themselves and regarding the line of ragged mothers with a mixture of interest and dismay, as though they are viewing a cabinet of curiosities. The room is warm and one or two are fanning themselves; another is holding a handkerchief to her nose.

  Suddenly aware of her own odour, she wraps her shawl more firmly around her waist. She cannot remember the last time she took more than a cursory rub down with a damp flannel, and she has worn the same clothes for weeks. The presence of these onlookers disturbs her; she turns her face to her child, but the sight of the little sleeping face is like the stab of a dagger, a reminder of the betrayal she is about to commit. She raises her eyes. All around are oil paintings in gilt frames, mostly of ships and classical scenes. But just above, to her right, is a large portrait of a kindly-looking man with wild grey hair and a red jacket. He has charts on the table beside him and a globe at his feet, but he is taking no heed of these. Instead, he seems to be smiling directly at her. She smiles back, and it cheers her.

  One of the ladies follows her gaze. ‘That is Thomas Coram, our founder,’ she says. ‘A very great man, for whose beneficence you must be truly grateful.’

  She has no idea what beneficence means, but she senses that he must be a good man, the sort of man you would want to have as a father if you were lucky enough to have known one, which she was not.

  Someone pushes past her so roughly that she is nearly thrown off-balance. It is one of the women she saw in the queue ahead, still carrying her bundle, only now she is wailing so loudly that some of the babies begin to cry in sympathy. As she rushes for the door she throws down a small, shiny black object which rolls across the floor towards the ladies. One of them stoops to pick it up, and passes it back to a man holding a large calico bag. She watches this man and sees that he invites each mother, as she comes to the head of the queue, to reach into the bag and pull out a ball. Some are red, others white or black. Ahead of her in the queue two women start to whisper, and she can just about make out what they are saying.

  ‘Poor cow, got the ruddy black ball,’ one says.

  ‘They won’t take her baby?’

  ‘Thass what ’appened to us last time, didn’ it, sweetling?’ the woman croons to her child.

  ‘What about the red ball?’

  ‘Waiting list.’

  ‘Then you have to get a white ball, or th
ey won’t even take the baby?’

  ‘Yup. If the doc says it’s healthy.’

  ‘After we’ve waited all this time.’

  ‘’Cos they got more’n they can manage.’

  The brief exchange makes everything clear: the future of herself and her baby lies in a lottery of little coloured balls. She waits in line, dully, devoid of emotion. She doesn’t even care about the stares of the smart ladies and gentlemen any more. What will happen will happen. It is out of her hands. Obediently, she reaches into the bag and pulls out a white ball that seems to sear her eyes with its cruel, unearthly brightness.

  Only later, as she leaves the hospital through the hallway, out of the door, down the steps and out into the bright sunlight, does the numbness wear off. Her arms are empty. The full horror and finality of what has just happened, of what she has so calmly acquiesced to, hits her with a scorching pain so powerful that she cannot breathe, nor see, nor speak.

  She staggers and falls to the ground, wishing for nothing except to die.

  1

  Gown: a full-length, sleeved garment with a fitted bodice and skirts cut in two basic variations: the English Gown (also nightgown or robe à l’Anglaise) and the Sack Gown (negligee, sacque or robe à la Française).

  From Miss Charlotte’s glossary for the instruction of apprentice seamstresses

  It is a charming tableau, tinted in my memory with the glow of innocence, a light wash of gold or pink such as a painter might use to impart a spirit of contentment to their composition.

  Two young women are taking tea by the fireside in a modest parlour, its grey-painted panelling hung with a few indistinct prints. Long white cambric curtains are pulled aside to reveal, on a rail in the background, a kaleidoscope of silk gowns, petticoats and waistcoats that over the coming months will be worn at society events all over London and even further afield.

  They themselves are dressed simply and unadorned in plain taffetas, their sleeves without lace, their heads uncovered. They are friends, in informal company. The fairer one, her nose and cheeks dotted with freckles, rests back in her chair. ‘Of all the women with whom I am acquainted, you are surely the one who knows herself the best,’ she says. ‘You seem so confident, so secure in your place.’

  Her companion, smaller and darker with a serious demeanour and neat, contained features, raises her eyebrows and shakes her head modestly even though, in this moment, she does indeed feel truly blessed. She grows increasingly confident in her work; she has family, friends and enough money with which to enjoy a comfortable life. She is beginning truly to know herself. Or that is what she thinks.

  But she is wrong. The artist takes up his tubes of grey and brown with just a tint of purple, and mixes up on his palette the colours of thunder clouds that, now that we study the canvas more carefully, we can see lurking on the horizon. For the truth is that she knows herself barely at all.

  The two young women are, of course, myself and my dearest friend, Anna Vendome.

  ‘I have always envied you, Charlotte, ever since we first met,’ she said. ‘Remember that day when Aunt Sarah brought me for my first gown fittings? I was so nervous and confused. I didn’t know a thing about fashion and nor did I really want to, at the time, but you helped me through it.’

  How could I forget? Miss Butterfield, as I then knew her, had been shy to the point of being almost monosyllabic, but I could already sense the strength of character beneath that subdued demeanour. ‘And your aunt so determined to turn you into the model of a young society lady.’

  ‘A hopeless task, as it turned out.’ She guffawed in the most unladylike manner. It is true, with her long back, large hands and feet and that unruly hair; she has never fitted the mould. Which is why we get on so well, I always think. In some ways, we are both outsiders.

  ‘You were so confident and so professional. I was in awe of you. Still am, a little.’ She held up her palms, wide-eyed, feigning fear.

  ‘Don’t tease. I’m just an ordinary woman trying to make her way in the world.’

  ‘Ordinary? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Look at you, too. People flocking to your door.’ In just a few short years Anna’s designs for flowered silks have already become in such demand that they have needed to hire an additional half-dozen journeymen to weave them. Henri told me himself that his business would be only half as profitable without his wife’s artistic talents.

  ‘Men recognise you, Charlotte, for the businesswoman you are. That’s the difference. They always ask for Henri first, even though it is my designs they’re after, and I’m often taken for the servant. They just don’t seem to believe it is possible for a woman to know what she is talking about, or indeed that she could, in some fields, have greater expertise than a man.’

  The inequity between the sexes is a recurring theme of our conversations.

  ‘But you have created all of this on your own,’ she went on, waving an expansive arm in the direction of the garment rail. ‘Here you are with your name above the door, with some of the wealthiest of society ladies calling for your services. You make your own money and you pay your own bills. You employ several skilled seamstresses who all seem to admire you. And you are beholden to no other, man or woman. Just to yourself. It’s a remarkable achievement.’

  She is right, I suppose. After a particularly unpromising start, and as an unmarried woman of no society pedigree or fortune, I have managed with the help and generosity of friends to fashion a decent life for myself, a life that I imagined would serve me well for the rest of my days.

  But what Anna said next would set in train a sequence of events that would rock those foundations to the core.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot to give you this.’

  Pulling on her cloak – the midnight-blue velvet with the ruby hood lining – Anna reached into her pocket and pulled out a notice printed on cheap paper, the type of flyer handed around to advertise plays, concerts or those tonics that promise to cure all your ills.

  FOR SALE BY AUCTION

  DUE TO BANKRUPTCY

  The ENTIRE stock of the finest silks,

  satins, damasks, brocades,

  and other top quality tissues &c. &c.

  At The Red Lyon Inn, Spitalfields

  Upper Rooms

  On Tuesday the 22nd day of September 1768

  Viewing from one o’clock, sale begins two o’clock

  EVERYTHING MUST GO

  ‘It’s not your uncle, I hope?’ I said. The merchant Joseph Sadler and his ne’er-do-well son William had been through difficult times in the past few years, and might have overstretched themselves by moving to grander premises in Ludgate Hill.

  She laughed. ‘Thankfully they seem to prosper, despite Will’s best efforts to sink them. But about this auction. Will you go with me?’

  ‘You plan to go? Whatever do you hope to find there, my friend?’

  ‘I am curious, dearest. You never know what might turn up. Perhaps even some French silks fit to tickle the fancy of a society lady at half the cost of new?’

  ‘How can I leave the shop for a whole afternoon?’ I was still unconvinced.

  ‘It’s a Tuesday, Charlotte. Early closing day.’

  There was a great press of bodies outside the Red Lyon as we waited for the auction rooms to open and as the only women among a crowd of men we attracted a fair few stares and muttered comments. The sky was overcast, threatening the first rains of autumn, and I was on the point of giving up.

  ‘Come on, it will be interesting, dearest,’ Anna said, tightening her grip on my arm.

  At last the doors opened, and we made our way up the long flight of wooden stairs to a capacious room stretching the width of the building above the alehouse. On three sides trestle tables sagged under rolls of fabric, dozens of them, fat and full. With holdings like these it was little wonder the merchant had gone bankrupt; they must be worth hundreds, even thousands of pounds. Even so, none were of any real interest to me: fashions are so capricious; I never require
more than a couple of dozen yards for any one outfit, and have little storage space.

  Anna headed directly to the other side of the room where a table was laden with folded cloths, short pieces and reel ends, all carefully labelled with specifications and dimensions. She picked up a bundle of mixed silks tied with a ribbon, pulled out a corner and peered at the back of the weave with her pocket magnifier.

  ‘I swear it’s a Leman, or perhaps a Baudouin. Henri would know,’ she muttered, almost to herself. ‘Such brilliant designers. D’you know, Charlotte, some of these silks have more than a thousand threads in every inch. It could take weeks to weave just a couple of yards. They used to fetch premium prices.’

  These heavy silks with their rococo patterns are of only passing interest for me, being too outmoded for my fashion-conscious clients, but Anna has an inexhaustible curiosity for the design and technicalities of weaving, especially those of the French masters.

  ‘They’re such rare examples. I’d really like to have them, Charlotte. I can’t imagine many others would be interested in such small swatches, can you?’ she said, checking the label. ‘Lot two-six-one.’

  ‘Have you ever bid at an auction before?’ She shook her head. ‘It cannot be too difficult, can it?’ I said.

  At two o’clock the auction got under way and we retired to the rear of the room to observe.

  The auctioneer skilfully drummed up an atmosphere of urgency, filling the room with feverish energy, and the sale proceeded swiftly. Larger lots went for what seemed like bargain prices and before long the crowd had thinned and tables emptied as successful bidders carried away their spoils, hefting the rolls onto their shoulders with triumphant grins.

  Anna fidgeted beside me, shifting from foot to foot, adjusting her shawl and bonnet. The auctioneer’s eyes turned towards us, eyebrows questioning. ‘Are you in, young lady?’ A dozen heads turned and a titter of amusement rippled through the room as she shook her head, blushing fiercely.

  ‘Your head is much cooler than mine, Charlotte,’ she whispered. ‘Will you bid for me?’