The Silk Weaver

You cannot be too wary in the choice of him you would call your friend; nor suffer your affections to be so far engag’d, as to be wholly at his devotion. ’Tis dangerous trusting one’s happiness in another person’s keeping; or to be without a power to refuse, what may be your ruin to grant.

– Advice for apprentices and journeymen

OR A sure guide to gain both esteem and an estate

The heatwave broke, heavy grey-purple clouds rolling in from the west and blotting out the merciless rays of the sun for the first time in weeks. Soon enough, Henri could hear the rumbles of thunder, first in the distance and then drawing closer and closer until they seemed to be directly overhead. Then the rain started, drumming so loudly on the slates immediately above their heads that he and Benjamin had to shout over the noise.

The sky darkened like dusk, making it difficult to see the fine threads of silk. The drawboy shrieked in terror with each flare of lightning and was unable to concentrate on maintaining the proper sequence of lashes. It soon became clear that no weaving could continue until the storm had passed.

They took the boy down to the basement kitchen where the noise of the storm was more distant and, while the cook sat him at the table and warmed a cup of milk to calm his nerves, Henri took the opportunity of slipping next door into his room. There, he took out Anna’s letter once more from its hiding place, carefully concealed with her sketch beneath his mattress.

When M. Lavalle had asked whether the letter contained the permission he sought, Henri had to admit that it was not yet agreed.

‘I hope to meet her at Christ Church after the service on Sunday,’ he said, cursing the red flush rising up his neck onto his cheeks.

‘I see,’ the old man said, with a knowing smile. ‘She certainly appears to be a charming young lady, and her artistic skills are remarkable.’ His face settled into a more serious expression. ‘I trust you will approach this meeting in an entirely professional manner, Henri? She may dress like a maid, but from her accent and her bearing you must understand that she is not one of us.’

‘It is a business proposition, nothing more, I can assure you,’ Henri said, trying to believe himself. He was usually so self-assured with girls, so confident of his own good looks. He would often scheme for days to gain a girl’s attention and bask in his success when it was finally given, but was usually disappointed to discover that once the game had been won the prize tended to lose its glister.

This time it was more complicated. He could not determine which made his heart race most: the prospect of seeing the girl again, of being close and hearing her voice, or the thought of getting her permission to use the drawing for his master piece.

The worst of the storm seemed to have passed when they heard Cook shouting, ‘Henri, your master is calling for you.’ He reached the top of the basement stairs to discover that M. Lavalle had opened the front door to a bedraggled figure. ‘Come in, come in out of the rain, Guy. Whatever possessed you to venture out in this storm? You look like a drowned rat. Henri, where are you?’ the old man shouted. ‘Oh, there you are. Take the lad downstairs and get him dry, for heaven’s sake.’

His friend’s face, always pale, was now almost grey, the sockets around his eyes bruised purple, as though he had not slept for days.

‘Whatever is the matter, are you unwell?’ Henri said, leading him down to the kitchen. ‘Here, take off your shirt and dry yourself. Cook, can he have some milk, please?’ He handed over an old towel while the cook scowled disapprovingly at this further intrusion into her kitchen. With a martyred sigh, she poured the milk and handed the cup to Guy as he sat, shivering, at the table.

‘You may have a quarter hour, no longer,’ his master said. ‘Please tell your friend that in future he should call only out of working hours.’

The old man nodded. ‘Very well. Tell those other two lads that the storm has passed and they must return to work.’

‘I’m in trouble, my friend. I need your help.’ The shirt hung too loosely on his friend’s gaunt frame, but at least some colour was now returning to his cheeks.

‘Last evening I was with my friends at The Dolphin, you know, having a few pints of ale.’

‘They got talking about the Soie de Lyon list; how impatient they were that nothing seems to have been done against these mercers who are doing us out of our living. I tried to remind them that Monsieur Lavalle was looking into it, like he said, raising it through the proper channels. But with each round they got more and more agitated, saying they were sick of waiting for the bloody Company to act while they starved for lack of work, and wanted to show the bastards that they meant business.

‘I suggested we should write to each of the mercers on the list, not threatening, but just to tell them we know what they’re up to. So someone found some paper and a quill and ink, and started writing letters there and then. They were that drunk by now, and hot for delivering them that very night. Honestly, it was like watching a kettle coming to the boil. You know the lid’s going to fly off at any minute, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.’

‘They ran out and began going from house to house, shouting and egging each other on, starting to pry open shutters and throw cobbles, you know, with the notes wrapped round them, and breaking people’s windows. At one house they even set fire to a bunch of dried grass and stuffed it through a broken pane. They turned into maniacs,’ Guy said, beginning to shiver again. ‘I was terrified we might be caught.’

‘Let alone that you might have killed someone, or burned a whole family to death. Did they attack Sadler’s house?’ Henri held his breath, dreading the answer.

‘He got a stone through the fanlight with a note wrapped round it, nothing too serious.’

‘For God’s sake, why did you have to get yourself involved? Why did you go with them?’

‘I thought I could stop them. I tried, honestly, but they wouldn’t listen.’ Guy chewed a fingernail. ‘And then we saw the Watch coming round the corner.’

‘I don’t know for sure, but the Guards called at my rooms this morning, when I was out making a delivery. My landlady told them I’d be back in half an hour, so I just fled over here.’

‘I know, I know. I’m bloody terrified. If I get arrested, I’ll never get work again.’

It could be a lot worse than that, Henri knew. ‘Isn’t it best to come clean, explain that you were trying to stop them, like you told me?’

Henri could hear the rain gurgling down the gutters, splashing into the street outside. As his friend leaned closer he could smell his breath, rank with fear and self-neglect. ‘I have come to make a request, as my oldest and closest friend.’ Guy paused, struggling for the right words. ‘The only thing that’ll save me is an alibi, someone who’ll say I was with them last night.’

Henri felt the blood leach from his face. ‘You’re asking me to lie for you? To the law?’

‘Listen . . . even if I lie for you, any one of the others could swear you were with them, let alone all the other people who saw you out on the streets last night. It would be my voice against a dozen.’ Henri’s mind was in a turmoil of fear for himself, for his mother, for M. Lavalle, Mariette and all those others he might implicate.

The silence between them grew thick with mistrust. Henri went to the window, looking out at the rainy street and the houses opposite. With his back to the room, avoiding the look of desperation on his friend’s face, he summoned the courage and the words to express what he knew he must say.

‘You are my best friend. If the Guards call, I will vouch for your good character and good intentions, that’s a promise, and I will tell them you tried to stop the violence. But I cannot lie for you.’

He heard the sudden scrape of the chair and Guy pushed past, almost knocking him to the floor. ‘No thanks for your help, friend. Don’t bother coming to me when you are in trouble.’

‘This may be difficult, but you must tell Guy not to call here again, Henri. I feel sorry for him, but he has not heeded our warnings and I fear for his safety. This is a dangerous business. You cannot afford to be connected with it.’

M. Lavalle knew not to press the point. From Henri’s pallid cheeks and sweaty brow he could tell he’d been shaken by the encounter. Whatever had transpired, he would no doubt find out before long. ‘You’d better get back to work, then,’ was all he said.

Henri felt sick with apprehension, dreading each knock at the door, but two days passed without event. Guy failed to appear at church on Sunday morning and, as the priest droned on, Henri tried to imagine where his friend might be: had he gone to ground like an injured fox, lying low at another friend’s house, or perhaps out in the countryside, he wondered? It might be for the best that he stayed away, at least for a while. Much as he loved Guy, his politicking, his anger and resentment about the world of late had brought a sour note to their friendship.

The previous evening, taking supper with his mother in her rooms, as had become their habit of a weekend, he’d found the courage to talk about it. Clothilde was the only person, apart from M. Lavalle, whom he could trust, and she was quick to reassure her son that his decision was the right one. ‘La vérité finit toujours par éclater,’ she said. ‘Et vous éclate au visage.’ The truth will always come out and return to bite us.

As Henri crept out of the French church before final prayers his stomach churned with apprehension of a different kind. He ran to Christ Church, where the service was also drawing to an end, and slipped silently into the shadows behind the steps leading up to the organ loft. He wanted to be certain that Anna was alone, or accompanied only by her cousin, before allowing himself to be seen. Worrying about Guy had at least taken his mind off this meeting, but now the butterflies began to dance in his stomach once more.

He tried to imagine how she would respond, but found it impossible. Whoever knew how girls think, let alone English girls? Would she be cross when he admitted buying her sketch from the stallholder, or would she be flattered? He’d become so fixated on the design that he hadn’t even considered what he would do if she failed to meet him or, worse, refused to give permission for him to use it.

The service ended and, as the ladies and gentlemen began to file past in their bright silk dresses and jackets, with their ornate hats and finely dressed wigs, he became painfully aware of his own shabbiness, in his well-worn linen jacket and plain serge trousers, with only a brown cloth cap to cover his head. They were his Sunday best, of course, but even so, how could she possibly allow herself to be seen with him?

As the church emptied he began to fear that she might not have come after all, but then he caught sight of her, hanging behind. She was with her cousin, the girl with the ringlets, but there was no sign of Mr or Mrs Sadler, or William, which meant that she would surely be looking out for him.

He inched back into the shadows, his feet itching to take flight, but before he knew it, she was standing in front of him.

‘Monsieur Vendôme, how do you do?’ she said, holding out a hand. He was so surprised that he hesitated to reciprocate and then responded just in time. Their fingers met briefly and awkwardly, and were quickly withdrawn.

‘Miss Butterfield,’ he said, feeling the blush deep into the roots of his hair. ‘Please, my name is Henri.’

‘Then you must call me Anna.’ There was that bold gaze again, the one that seemed instantly to draw him into her confidence. ‘And this is my cousin Lizzie Sadler. Lizzie, meet Henri Vendôme, the weaver I told you about.’ Lizzie scowled and bent her head in acknowledgement but did not offer her hand.

Henri’s mind went blank and an uneasy silence fell between them. All he knew was that he needed to own up about the drawing. He began trying to explain and then, words failing, pulled out the sketch that had been carefully folded inside his jacket, opened it and, with a shaking hand, held it out to Anna.

‘But that is my drawing.’ Her voice shrilled with recognition. ‘The one I did in the market, the one I gave to the stallholder. How did you get hold of it?’

‘I pay her,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the drawing, fearful of raising them to hers. ‘Good money. All – how you say? – above the boards. I was upstairs at the market and saw you sketching and, you know . . .’ He ran out of words again, recalling the shimmering feeling of revelation he’d had that day as he gazed down on her bowed head, captivated by the designs emerging from the point of her pencil.

He steeled himself to look up and, with relief, saw that her expression was not one of anger, just genuine astonishment.

‘Well, I am flattered, of course,’ she said. ‘But may I be so bold as to enquire why you wanted this paltry drawing of mine?’

‘To become a silk master I must make a piece of weaving to show my skills. This is called my master piece. If they approve this, I am a Freeman and I set up in business for myself.’

‘It is difficult to explain,’ he said, with a sideways glance at Lizzie. ‘And there is but a few minutes.’ Behind them, he could see the church officials snuffing the altar candles, folding the white linen cloths used for the Eucharist, gathering hymnals, preparing to close the church. He turned back to Anna and her smile, and found himself almost overwhelmed by the desire to take her hand.

Lizzie had wandered away, peering up the stairs leading to the organ loft. ‘Can she go up?’ Anna asked. For a second, her hand rested on his jacket sleeve. Even though it was withdrawn almost immediately the warm imprint persisted as a tingle on his skin.

‘Mais oui. The organ will not sound unless someone is working the bellows.’

Feeling suddenly bold, he led her to one of the benches that ran along each side of the church, where the sun pouring through the clear glass of the high-arched windows reflected off the high ceiling and white walls with an ethereal light. As they sat, side by side, it felt to him like the most natural thing in the world.

He reached into the pocket of his breeches and brought out the large piece of point paper onto which he’d attempted to translate a section of the design with dots of colour in each of the tiny squares. He unfolded it and smoothed it onto his knee.

‘This is how we make a design for weaving,’ he said, thrilling at the warmth of her as she moved closer to scrutinise it. ‘It show us how to set up the loom, how to join the lashes which pull up the warp threads and allow the weft threads to go over them or under them and make the pattern.’

As he tried, in his halting English, to describe the very complex process in simple terms, he discovered that hand gestures were often easier and more eloquent. Glancing sideways to check whether she was understanding his descriptions, he found himself in danger of losing himself in her face: the serious blue-green eyes, the way she listened so carefully, the little cleft in her forehead that deepened in concentration.

He sensed that her interest was genuine, not forced. ‘So the warp goes long-ways, the weft from side to side?’ she would ask, or, ‘The warp is the strength and the weft usually provides the change of colour?’ or, ‘So, if you want to make a solid block of the same colour, you just allow that weft thread to stay at the top?’

‘Yes, but if this is too big, the fabric will . . .’ He held his palms together, then pulled them an inch apart.

‘It will separate, you mean?’ she said. ‘I’d be a hopeless silk designer!’ Laughing with her, watching the way her face lit up, Henri felt happier in this very moment than he could remember ever being before. Time seemed to stand perfectly still. There was no feeling of urgency, just the thrill of sensing her curiosity, and his own desire to help her understand why this meant so much to him.

‘Oh, if only you see the loom,’ he said, exasperated by the inadequacy of words. ‘This is how I learn, by watching other weavers.’

‘No matter. I am learning so much already,’ she said. ‘The idea of weaving a design makes so much sense, because nature is never just a block of colour,’ she said. ‘Look at the flowers I’ve drawn here.’ She pointed at the sketch still in her hand. ‘This might be a pink flower, but to colour it in a natural way, I would have to use a dozen shades of pinks, oranges, reds and purples, even black, to give the shading which makes the shape look realistic.’

She had shaded the petals of the flowers so realistically that the blooms seemed to reach out of the paper towards him. Not a single leaf, stalk or petal were flat, all were three-dimensional, entwined around themselves, so true to life that you could imagine them swaying in the breeze. And not a single one was the same: she had reflected all the imperfections of nature, the torn frond, the curled petal, the bent stem.

He could not bear the moment to end. ‘I have this question to ask,’ he said. ‘The question of importance.’

They were standing now, facing each other, and he found himself suddenly tongue-tied. ‘May I . . . that is, can you . . . is it possible to . . .’ She was waiting, her face lifted to his, her expression gentle, encouraging. Eventually he blurted it out: ‘I would like to use your design for my master piece, but first I must have your permission.’

Their faces were turned to each other, eyes meeting, just inches apart. He could almost feel the pressure of those soft lips on his. With any other girl he would have kissed her in a moment, even daring to reach a hand to her breast, but this time he felt curiously constrained.

Instead, he took her hand. She did not resist and she did not take it away; it rested there, dry and light, with a heat that seemed to sear upwards through his arm and into his whole body.

‘I am very flattered, sir,’ she said, with a smile that left him breathless. They stood, unmoving, for a few further blissful moments, the sun shining down on them through the window, the only sounds the indistinct murmuring voices of the clergy far away in the vestry, the cooing of pigeons outside and the light clunk of Lizzie’s fingers on the organ keys above. ‘May I see the fabric, when you have woven it?’

‘I like to invite you to Monsieur Lavalle’s house, so you see it on the loom,’ he said. ‘But I think that may not be easy?’

He knew it was the truth, and there was little more to be said, but the thought that he might never meet her again left him bereft. After a moment, she took her hand gently from his. He watched, wordlessly, as she prepared to take her leave, smoothing her skirt, straightening her shoulders, checking that her hat was still at the right angle.

‘I wish you all the best with your master piece.’ Her smile was so sweet, and so regretful, that it seemed to suck the breath from his lungs. She called to her cousin: ‘Come, Lizzie, it is nearly lunchtime.’

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