The Silk Weaver Read online

  The walls to each side were covered from floor to ceiling with boxes of bobbins, shuttles and pirns, all carefully labelled by colour, twist and denier. Empty warps were suspended from the ceiling, ready to be sent out to the winders. These beams, too awkward to manoeuvre down narrow stairways, would be eased through the wide casement window and lowered to the street below on ropes from a gantry. The reverse operation was used for returning the wound warps ready for mounting on a loom.

  The windows were thrown wide open this sultry July afternoon – being at the top of the house, hard beneath the tiles, the loft was always too hot in summer or too cold in winter. Under the looms were straw pads on which the drawboy and apprentice slept. At the end of his indentures, Henri had graduated to the privilege of a truckle bed in a small box room in the basement of the house, next to the kitchen, where it was never too cold nor too warm and was close to supplies of bread and cheese which, if taken in moderation, could evade the cook’s suspicions.

  ‘Merde, it’s hot up here today,’ Henri said, closing the trapdoor with a gentle thud.

  The drawboy, who normally worked the lashes and simples, had taken Henri’s absence as an opportunity and was asleep on his pallet. Benjamin, the apprentice for whom he had responsibility for tuition, sat dully slumped at his loom, upon which he was supposed to be weaving a basic grey taffeta lining for gentlemen’s waistcoats.

  ‘How’s that tabby going?’ Henri said, peering over to see for himself. ‘Whatever have you been up to? I’ve been gone an hour and you’ve barely woven an inch.’

  ‘Broken warp thread,’ the boy muttered. ‘Took an age to find. They’re the devil to see in this colour.’

  Henri examined the woven fabric more closely. ‘Make sure you pull that heddle firmly after each pass of the shuttle, to press the weft taut against itself. No skimping or the fabric will turn out uneven and it shows badly on a plain silk like this. Take care Monsieur Lavalle has no excuse to dock your dinner again.’

  The boy was lazy and already half starved for being rude to his master; he was the spoiled only son of an English mariner and spoke longingly of going to sea, but his father had decided that the silk business would be more profitable and less dangerous. Henri doubted he would see out the full seven-year indenture, but it was a feather in his own cap that M. Lavalle had entrusted him with the boy’s training and he was determined to persevere while he remained.

  He nudged the drawboy awake with his toe. ‘Lashes time, gamin.’ The boy groaned and rubbed his eyes, then stirred himself into his position beside the loom.

  For the next few hours the three boys worked hard, each concentrating on their tasks, the only sound the clack of the shuttles, the rattle of the treadles manipulated by Henri’s feet, as if he were an organist, and his terse instructions to the drawboy about which of the dozen numbered simples of the figure harness to pull: ‘cinq, cinq, un, sept, dix, dix.’

  They all knew that, as the sun lowered behind the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street, the light would quickly fade and weaving would have to stop. On rare occasions when a deadline was immutable they could weave by candlelight, but the going would be slow and the quality jeopardised. Fine silk threads, only visible because of their lustre, would become almost impossible to see by the flickering light of a candle. More than once, Henri had been forced to reweave a piece because of the faults he had discovered the following day, and M. Lavalle would fly into a rage at the waste of precious silk.

  Later that evening, after a supper of boiled eggs, apple pie and ale followed by a short game of backgammon with M. Lavalle and Benjamin, Henri retired to his basement room. The cook was still clattering about the kitchen next door, clearing up, laying the fire and preparing vegetables for the following day, but the noise of domesticity never troubled him. He found it comforting; a reminder of how, as a boy in France, he would listen to his parents talking and moving about in the house below his bedroom, long before their troubles began.

  Henri closed his eyes and wondered how his mother was faring this sultry night. A year ago the widow had been courted by one of her customers, a weaver from Bethnal Green, whose wife had died, leaving him with five small children to raise. But he was pockmarked and ill-tempered and she’d been wary of his attentions. Even though grief still cast a long shadow over her heart she had found her place in society, taking on voluntary work at the French church and making a good living as a throwster, while no longer being responsible for Henri’s upkeep. Now in her late forties, she had grown to relish her independence and had no intention of taking on responsibility for a new family. So, when the widower proposed, she had refused him.

  Unfortunately he took her refusal as a personal slight and she had received no work from him ever since. And he seemed to have told his friends, too, because commissions from other regular customers also dried up from that moment. She was a proud woman and rarely complained, but Henri could hardly fail to notice that she had been forced to give up the second room of her lodgings, which meant that she had to work, eat and sleep in a single cramped and airless space. There was little food in her cupboard, and he would slip her a loaf of bread or a couple of eggs whenever he could.

  He’d mentioned it to M. Lavalle, who had tried to send as much work as he could in her direction. What Henri now wanted most in the world was to gain his mastership and then raise enough money to rent his own house and his own looms, to provide his mother with the comfort and security she so desperately deserved.

  Of late he had spent the moments before sleep imagining himself in the aromatic embrace of the sugared-almond seller but this time, when sleep finally came, it was of the English girl that he dreamed, the girl with the bold gaze and blue-green eyes, the girl who spoke like a lady but dressed as a maid. She took his hand and led him into a room hung on all sides with the most beautiful silks he had ever seen, sumptuous satin grounds figured with intricate, elegant and delicate floral designs in intense, lustrous colours, the kind that took months to weave just a few yards of, that cost hundreds of pounds and was commissioned only for dukes and duchesses, bishops and royalty.

  He woke, in the dark, knowing that the dream was his future: to achieve his Freedom and be accepted into the Weavers’ Company, he would have to create, design and then weave without fault such a fabric as one of these, as his master piece.

  4

  Do not be too submissive to the dictates of fashion; at the same time avoid oddity or eccentricity in your dress. There are some persons who will follow, in defiance of taste and judgement, the fashion to its most extreme point; this is a sure mark of vulgarity.

  – The Lady’s Book of Manners

  Anna had been dreading the day when her gowns would be ready, when she would have to forgo her comfortable linen skirts and jackets, the cambric petticoat worn soft with washing and the boned stays grown flexible with age.

  Worse than that, the thought of having to ask the family’s maid to help her dress twice a day, once in the morning for her daytime outfit and then, before supper, into an evening gown, troubled her deeply. Betty was sweet and willing – in some ways Anna felt more of an affinity with her than she did with the rest of the family – but it was the prospect of being so entirely dependent on someone else that she could not bear.

  At the vicarage they’d had just a day-cook and a maid, with no live-in help – her father cherished evenings when they could enjoy the peace and privacy of a family home. Her aunt’s relationship with the servants seemed inconsistent, veering between being domineering and overfamiliar, and it was difficult to know how she should treat them. Either way, she did not relish the thought of having to share her most intimate times, of dressing and undressing, with another.

  Homesickness weighed like a boulder in her chest; a constant, almost physical pain that could only be relieved, temporarily, by reading or conversation. Other distractions seemed precious few. The life of a London lady in polite society was, as far as she could tell, devoid of purpose, endeavour,
excitement or intellectual stimulus. She had no friends to talk to apart from Lizzie, who seemed solely interested in gossip, clothes and other frivolous matters. If she tried to engage the girl in discussion about novels, or the latest news in The Times, Lizzie would chide her: ‘Why so serious, Anna? Cheer up! You’ve always got your nose in a book, and who cares about silly wars or politics, or what the Scots are up to now?’

  Occasionally there were guests at supper, when subjects might be discussed such as the shocking excesses of the gin-drinking poor, or the shameful greed and violent tendencies of journeymen weavers. Once or twice she had tentatively ventured to contribute to the conversation or ask a simple question: ‘What are the weavers demonstrating for?’ or, ‘How can poor people afford gin, and not bread?’

  Each time, Uncle Joseph had been dismissive: ‘Why would a girl want to trouble her head with the nastier aspects of our world?’ he’d say. ‘You must engage your mind with more pleasant matters, Niece. Fashion, music, art. These are more suitable topics.’

  After leaving the table with the other ladies to play whist or gossip about the latest French hat styles, she could hear the men’s discussions raging next door, and longed to be there with them instead, eager to learn how city life, trade and politics worked. But, for now, she stopped asking questions and contented herself with close reading of the newspapers her uncle brought into the house each day.

  She read reports of a slump in the silk business partly caused by the illegal smuggling of cheaper French imports and how thousands of weavers were out of work and even starving. Bread riots, such as the one they had encountered, were apparently becoming commonplace. Some silk masters, it was claimed, hired untrained people, sometimes women and children, to avoid paying the rates demanded by journeymen.

  There were stories of stonings, sabotage and even what the paper called a ‘skimmington’: when a weaver accused of working below the agreed rates was tied to a donkey backwards and driven through the streets accompanied by the ‘rough music’ of jeering journeymen hammering pots and pans. It sounded violent and horrible and, much as she felt sorry for those who had not enough money to live on, she fervently hoped that such problems would not affect her uncle’s business.

  The ache of homesickness was worst at night, when the house was locked and barred and the rest of the household asleep, but the alien sounds of the city filtered through the ill-fitting windows of her little garret bedroom. Dogs howling, drunken louts brawling and the catcalls of what William referred to as ‘women of the night’ kept her wide awake, intruding even into her sleep.

  She hoped against hope that she would, in time, become used to this strange new world, but for now she lay sleepless for hours at a time, and her thoughts inevitably turned to Suffolk. She missed her mother, of course, like a hole in her soul. She could still summon that dear face, the wispy hair, the vague, slightly distracted look, the gentle, calming voice. From her mother she had learned how to draw and paint, how to appreciate all living things, how to recognise wild flowers and cultivate a kitchen garden, how to sew and bake. All these skills she was determined to cherish, holding them close to her heart as the precious legacy of her mother’s love.

  She missed the countryside: the sea with its violent turns of mood and ever-changing shoreline; the constant, comforting shurrush of reeds rustling in the marshes and the shallow brackish lakes loud with the calls of wading birds; the heathland with its changing colours – the fizzing yellow of spring broom, the delicate dog rose in pale pink and white, the fiercer pink of summer willow-herb and finally the brilliant purple heather, spread across the sandy land like a blanket.

  She missed the companionship of the village, too, the comings and goings at the vicarage, her friends from church, her sister, their dog Bumbles, her art lessons with Miss Daniels and, most of all, her father.

  As she had grown towards adulthood, Theodore had come to confide in his elder daughter, grumbling about the demands of the more eccentric and wayward members of his congregation and bemoaning the impossible requests sent down from on high from his diocesan masters. He invited her to sit at his side during meetings with the accountant about the family’s finances, with his lawyer discussing legal issues relating to the church and sometimes at parish council meetings if there was a particularly thorny issue to be debated.

  ‘You are the only one I can trust, dearest, and I need you to be my eyes and ears, so that you can guide me as to whether I am making the right decisions,’ he said, more than once.

  So she had watched and listened, learning how a negotiation could be successfully achieved without an opponent even realising that they had acceded; how to bring a conversation back from the diversion of a personal hobby horse without the speaker feeling they had been ignored; how to understand the elements of simple accounting and the basic tenets of legal judgement.

  In his darkest moments Theodore would admit that his faith had been tested by her mother’s persistent illness, and would debate with her the morality of continuing to preach when assailed by such doubts. In better times, they talked late into the night of literature, of politics both local and national, of philosophical ideas, of the exciting new understandings of science and nature being discovered. Although not artistic himself – she had inherited that talent from her mother – he gladly supported her desire to learn, paying for her lessons with an old lady in the village who had become something of a local celebrity for her book of floral illustrations.

  She missed her privacy. A vicarage is a public place with plenty of comings and goings but, despite this, there were always quiet corners where each member of the family could enjoy their own company. Here, in the more confined quarters of the Spital Square house, the only place she could be alone was in her bedroom. But if she spent too much time there, and was discovered by Lizzie or her aunt, she would face questioning. Why had she retired to bed? Was she feeling unwell?

  Most of all she missed her freedom. She was desperate to find out more about her new surroundings, to explore the streets and, particularly, to find subjects to draw and paint. With the cook’s help, she created a still-life tableau on the dining table with plates, mugs, a loaf of bread and some peaches, but she had to deconstruct it each mealtime and was never able to replace it again in precisely its original form.

  She sketched the rooftop view from her bedroom window, struggling to find the perspective of all those angles; she painted Lizzie in her favourite yellow damask gown, head bent over her tapestry frame. Figures were always so difficult and the light in the house, with its heavy furnishings and small windows, was often poor – it made her appreciate all the more those masters of the internal space, the Rembrandts and Vermeers, whose paintings she had seen reproduced as engravings at Miss Daniels’ house.

  But what really fired her artistic imagination were growing things, trees and flowers: the way that light and shade played through the tracery of their stems, the leaves in shapes of endless variety and infinite shades of green, and the colours of their petals, sometimes subtle, sometimes bold.

  The last watercolour she had made before leaving Suffolk was of the green coils of columbine that twined unchecked along the vicarage fence, and she had been pleased with the painting’s strong sense of movement, accented by brilliant white flowers with their delicate pink stripes. Her father had lavished praise, and requested that he could hang it on his study wall, ‘to remind me of you when I am lonely’. She had already decided that her first London drawing – when she was satisfied that she had created something good enough – would be sent to him for a birthday or Christmas present.

  Here in the London house there was little opportunity to observe growing things. All was stifling stillness and propriety, and her aunt’s instructions were uncompromising: she was not allowed to venture into the streets without being accompanied by Lizzie, or Betty, and without a clear purpose and timetable. But Lizzie was at her studies each morning, and Betty had her work to do, so, more often than not, Anna was left to her o
wn devices.

  The heatwave persisted and she found herself nodding off even during daytime. It felt as though her life was slipping away.

  Aunt Sarah had promised that when she was ‘properly attired’ they would go visiting. Anna dreaded the thought of such formalities, of pretending to be someone she was not, of making polite conversation with strangers, but anything would be better than this isolation and confinement. So when her aunt received a note from Miss Charlotte announcing that the gowns were ready for collection, she was surprised to find that the dread had been overtaken by a sense of excitement.

  It was just a short walk – no call for a chaise, her aunt said – but the day was warm, and by the time they reached Draper’s Lane she was starting to perspire uncomfortably.

  The sign above the door read: Miss Charlotte Amesbury, Costumière. Through the glass of the single bow window she could see what appeared to be a group of fashionably attired ladies and gentlemen, but as they entered the front door she realised that the figures were dressmaker’s dummies. The gowns were beautiful, but so adorned with gathers, ruffles and lace that she wondered how anyone could manage their daily lives wearing them. She prayed that the dresses that had been made for her would be simpler in design.

  Alerted by the tinkle of the bell attached to the front door, Miss Charlotte appeared almost instantly from a back room, welcoming Anna and her aunt with a broad smile.

  ‘Good day, Mrs Sadler, Miss Butterfield. All is ready for you, if you would like to come through.’

  She seemed so confident and energetic that Anna struggled to put an age to her – certainly no older than thirty-five, she thought to herself. Yet she wore no wedding ring. How had this woman managed to set up such a successful business, apparently on her own account, and remain so independent? At their previous meeting she had warmed to Miss Charlotte’s calm, composed manner. Now, she wondered whether she might become an ally, or even a friend, in this strange and confusing world.