The Silk Weaver

In conversing with professional gentlemen, never question them upon matters connected with their employment. An author may communicate, voluntarily, information interesting to you, upon the subject of his works, but any questions from you would be extremely rude.

– The Lady’s Book of Manners

The encounter with Henri Vendôme had lasted no longer than a quarter of an hour, but whenever she was alone Anna found herself reliving every second of it, in minutest detail.

There was no doubting that it had left her unsettled. Here she was, trying to find her feet in an unfamiliar city, adapting to the expectations of society. He was a stranger from another social world, another country even, and she was well aware that by talking with him in that intimate way she had crossed the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, risked the wrath of her aunt and uncle and potentially put her reputation in jeopardy.

Lizzie had made no secret of her disapproval. ‘Whatever were you thinking of, conversing all that time with the French boy, for all the world to see, as though he were one of us?’ she had asked, on their way home.

‘He’s a human being, Lizzie, just like you and me. He wanted permission to use my design for his weaving. I cannot see what is wrong with that,’ she’d retorted, a little too sharply. ‘Anyway, what would you like us to paint this afternoon?’

Anna barely cared. Those few moments in the church appeared gilded, glowing, a shimmering mirage. How easy she had found herself in his company, how plainly he had replied to her questions, struggling a little with the language, of course, but with such honesty.

Talking to him was like a breath of fresh air after the stiff conversations of her aunt and uncle, who somehow never seemed able to say exactly how they felt, or what they wanted, without embroidering their sentences with extra phrases and convolutions. Nothing was ever said directly. But with Henri, the conversation had flowed in a perfectly simple and uncomplicated way, as though she had known him for years.

She struggled to understand it: the tremor in her chest when she looked into his dark eyes, the way it had felt perfectly natural when he took her hand, like they were two halves meeting to make a whole. It had been thrilling and utterly irresistible.

That night she lay in bed, marvelling at this extraordinary turn of events. Could it be true that Henri thought her hastily drawn sketch good enough to recreate in silk? She felt flattered, and proud, that he showed such confidence in her design but at the same time it was alarming that she might hold some kind of responsibility for his future career. It would be the most important piece of weaving of his life, on which his acceptance as a silk master depended.

If only she knew more about weaving techniques, could understand what would translate into an elegant design, or even what would be considered fashionable. She’d been given a glimpse, as if through a chink in a door, into a wonderful new world of art and ideas, but the extent of her ignorance was like a lock preventing her from ever entering that doorway.

She tossed and turned as the thoughts tumbled around in her head. And then she remembered, with a realisation so powerful that she found herself sitting upright in bed, her eyes wide open. On her first day in this house Uncle Joseph had shown her the dozens of leather-bound sample books stacked on shelves in the company’s showroom. Each ledger contained dozens of drawings and designs on squared paper and clips of the finished silk, which were pasted or pinned onto the pages. There must be hundreds of silk designs right here in this house, just three floors below her. What a tantalising thought. If only she could study them, to find out more about what makes a good design for weaving into silk.

She entertained the idea of asking Uncle Joseph or William to help her, but dismissed it almost at once. Uncle Joseph would tell her not to ‘worry your little head about such matters’ or, worse, might question why she was so curious about silk designs. William was so grumpy and miserable he would probably tell her to mind her own business.

But what was stopping her from going to look at the sample books herself? Now? Everyone was asleep. The house was deathly quiet and pitch-black. She told herself not to be so impetuous, to wait until the morning and perhaps discuss it with Aunt Sarah. But the notion, once it took hold, would not let go.

She lit a candle, wrapped a shawl closely around her shoulders, and descended the stairs, carefully choosing the treads that she could trust not to creak. The most dangerous part was the upper landing, from which the other bedrooms led, but she managed to negotiate it without a sound. In her mind’s eye she could see the ledgers on the shelf. They were almost within her grasp.

When she finally reached the ground floor, the door to the office was closed and she feared it might be locked. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, turned the handle and eased it open.

At first, she did not register that the glow in the room emanated from another candle besides her own. A second later she sensed the presence of someone concealed behind its glow on the other side of the table. Before her legs had understood the need to take flight, the person looked up: it was cousin William, his face the colour of tallow, pinched into a grimace of alarm and immobilised in her gaze. She struggled to take in what her eyes were telling her: on the table in front of him was a money box, and in his open hand several gold coins.

In that same moment, he seemed to recover the power of movement. He picked up the money box and shoved it into a drawer underneath the table and then, slick as lightning, slipped the coins into the pocket of his robe where they fell against each other with a sharp clink. But also, in that fraction of a second, Anna comprehended what she had seen: William was stealing money. Even the flickering candlelight could not conceal the expression on his face: it was a look of naked guilt.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she managed to answer calmly. ‘I might ask the same of you, William.’

‘It is none of your business. You’re not allowed in here anyway.’ He turned away, as if to busy himself with some papers on the nearby desk. ‘I suggest you take yourself back to bed and I’ll say nothing more of it.’

She might have done so but for the anger. How dare he be so insolent, so unpleasant, when it was he who had been caught red-handed?

‘Is it not my business to report that I have seen you taking coins from the money box?’ she asked, astonished by her own audacity.

William turned back and stepped around the table towards her with clenched fists raised, his face puce with fury.

‘Is that your answer?’ she heard herself saying. Every muscle was straining to run, but she stood her ground. ‘To beat me?’

For a moment he seemed to freeze on the spot, with fists still held high, but then his arms fell to his sides, his face contorted in confusion and – she now saw – a look of utter wretchedness. He slumped into a chair, rested his head in his hands and gave a loud groan. ‘Oh Christ,’ he muttered. ‘Why don’t you tell the whole world? I’m finished, anyway, so what difference does it make?’ To her further alarm, she saw that his hunched shoulders were shaking.

This was a dizzying turn of events – William, the sophisticate, the tough man, breaking down in front of her? It would have been so easy to run away, but what gain would there be from that? Her original intention had slipped to the back of her mind. Now, she was really curious to know what was causing William such intense distress and why it had led him to help himself from the money box at the dead of night. She drew up a chair and waited until the sobs subsided.

William looked up, his eyes red and raw-looking. ‘For Christ’s sake, why are you still here? I told you to go back to bed,’ he said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his night robe.

She ignored the slight. ‘But it is, you see. I have seen it in your face these past few weeks. And it’s brought you to theft, too, if I’m not mistaken. So, as a member of the family, I think it is of quite some concern to me.’

His fingers wrestled in his lap. ‘How do I know you won’t sneak on me anyway?’

‘I give you my word, William. And I will do what I can to help you,’ she said. ‘Even if you don’t seem to like me very much.’

He sighed deeply, causing the candle to gutter. ‘I owe money,’ he began. ‘And if I don’t pay it back, they’re going to issue a writ to take me to court. I could end up in debtors’ prison.’

Anna’s head was spinning. Two hundred pounds! A small fortune. ‘How . . . ?’ she began.

‘Gambling,’ he said. ‘I’m such an idiot. It was Charlie got me started, and one thing led to another. Just thought if I could only get a lucky break, I could clear the debts and never do it again. But it doesn’t work like that and now some very powerful people are determined to bring me down, unless I pay up by the end of the week. Honestly, I don’t know what else to do.’

She thought for a few moments, weighing up the possibilities. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to own up to your father, and ask him to lend you the money? You can pay him back a certain amount each week.’

‘Haven’t you learned anything about my father?’ William scoffed. ‘If he knew I’d been gambling, he’d throw me out on my ear.’

‘He’s not without his own shortcomings,’ she said. ‘What about that illegally imported French silk?’

There was another long silence before he started again, in a low voice. ‘The thing is, it was me who ordered that silk. It was another wheeze to try to pay off my debts and Father was never supposed to know, but it got discovered and went horribly wrong. He’s been covering for me ever since, trying to get me off the hook.’

It was Anna’s turn to be speechless. William had risked the reputation of his father, the business and the whole family just to feed his gambling habit? Now she understood perfectly why he had looked so queasy for the past few days. It was a truly dreadful state of affairs.

‘Haven’t you any friends who can lend you money?’ She still disliked the man and would never condone his actions, but could not help feeling sorry for the miserable plight he’d got himself into. ‘Can you not pay the debt back slowly, a few pounds each week?’

‘They will beat me, perhaps to death. At least that’s what they’ve threatened.’

‘I may be an idiot but I’ve learned my lesson now, of that you can have my assurance,’ he said, looking her straight in the eye for the first time. ‘No, I will pay back a little each week, and no one need ever know.’

She did not want to know what ‘accounting adjustments’ meant and neither did she want to appear to be excusing his dishonesty, but she was coming to understand that, apart from telling Uncle Joseph, this might be the only way for William to avoid a fatal beating. She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘I will say no more of this meeting, on two conditions. First, that you do not mention my own appearance here tonight and, second, that you agree to help me with the mission on which I came in the first place.’

In the most confident voice she could muster, she replied, ‘I want to learn about how a silk design is translated into woven fabric, and what makes a good design.’

‘I cannot tell you why,’ she said. ‘Except that I am an amateur artist and now that I am living in a world full of silk the subject has piqued my interest.’

The colour had returned to his face now and she saw that his expression was, for once, neither a smirk nor a sneer. It was a smile, an honest smile, a smile of respect. ‘You want to look at these designs tonight?’

He moved quickly now, lighting three more candles and retrieving several ledgers from the showroom. For the next hour he was as good as his word, explaining all that he knew about silk design. He showed her how each double-page spread held a copy of the original design, the coloured point paper and a sample of the finished fabric, along with written instructions about the colour, yarn and weave.

‘First of all, the original design is translated onto these tiny squares and each one is coloured to represent the pattern that would be created by every movement of the warp threads, the ones that go lengthways,’ he said. He described how the type of cloth would determine the number and proportion of warp and weft threads – ‘for example, a satin has more warp threads than a tabby’ – and how each colour requires a different shuttle. ‘So, the more colours you have, the more complicated the weave and thus the more expensive the finished fabric,’ he explained.

Patterns could never be wider than a single comber – the width of the loom – of between nineteen and twenty-one inches. ‘And it must repeat well in width and length,’ he added, ‘to make it easier to weave without pucker, or distorting the design.’

‘There’s so much to remember,’ she sighed. ‘It would take a lifetime to learn it all.’

‘Many of the best designers are also weavers,’ he said. ‘But there are books about the topic. I will see if I can find one for you.’

He went on to talk about the design itself: how it is important never to have too many picks – ‘that’s a single pass of the shuttle’ – of one colour or this will result in a section of ‘floating’ weave which will be vulnerable to pulls and render the fabric ‘unstable’. He also showed her how it is difficult to weave curves, especially shallow curves, ‘when essentially you only have threads that go up and down or across’, and how shading can require especial skills, particularly in the horizontal plane. ‘It is simpler to shade with weft threads than with the warp,’ he explained, although she struggled to understand exactly what he meant.

The more he talked, the more Anna became convinced that her own sketch would be impossible to weave. All those curves, all that shading, all those colours, she thought to herself. Does Henri know what he is taking on, or will he have to simplify it to fit the difficulties of translating it into weave?

‘Your secret is safe with me, Cousin. But please take care. Stay out of trouble.’

The following morning Anna was in the drawing room with Aunt Sarah, trying to read but struggling to keep her eyes open, when Betty arrived with the post.

The pretensions of the family never failed to amuse her – apart from the daily cook, Betty was their only servant, and thus expected to comport herself as butler, footman, lady’s maid and under-servant, all in one day. Nonetheless, she appeared to manage it all with admirably good humour.

‘A letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Sadler, and one for yourself,’ she said, presenting the silver tray to Aunt Sarah with a curtsey. ‘Would you take more tea, madam?’

‘No, you may remove the tray now, thank you.’ Aunt Sarah brushed her away with a flick of her wrist, and reached for the ivory letter knife.

The first, released from its crested envelope with great ceremony, was the formal invitation to the Worshipful Company of Mercers’ annual autumn dinner the following week, the event that had been the subject of much discussion at the Hinchliffes’ on their visit. Sarah examined for some minutes the thick, gilt-edged card with its heavy gold script, before asking Anna to place it on the mantelpiece.

‘No, not there, dear. In the middle, where everyone can see it,’ she said, sighing at her niece’s failure to appreciate the simplest of social niceties.

Anna had heard no mention of French silk since the night of the stone-throwing incident. Perhaps, she thought, this invitation was an indication that all had been smoothed over. She very much hoped so.

‘Your uncle and I are certain to have a most advantageous place at the high table because Mr Sadler is tipped to be Upper Bailiff next year. He is so very well respected, you know, and it is the highest position in the Company.’ Sarah fanned her face with the envelope. ‘Oh, my dear, it fills me with such pride to think of it. And I will have to look my very best at his side. I must commission a new gown from Miss Charlotte at the very earliest moment.’

She took up the second letter. ‘And this one is from dearest Augusta,’ she exclaimed, unsealing the folded note, and reading out loud: ‘Now that we are lately returned from Bath, Charles, Susannah and I would be delighted to welcome yourself, Miss Sadler and Miss Butterfield for tea tomorrow afternoon.’

‘How very generous,’ Aunt Sarah purred. ‘Do you hear that, Anna? Charles will be joining us again. This is excellent news. He seemed most taken with you last time.’

‘He is certainly a very pleasant young man,’ Anna said, recalling the cadaverous face and the Adam’s apple that bobbed so distractingly in his throat.

‘I do so long to hear about their time in Bath,’ Sarah went on. ‘And whether Susannah was introduced to any suitable young men. Oh, and I wonder if they met with Mr Gainsborough to discuss Mr Hinchliffe’s portrait. I should be most interested to hear of this. Indeed, I have considered whether we should commission him ourselves, to paint your uncle in his Upper Bailiff robes and regalia.’

Anna knew full well of Mr Gainsborough’s reputation – he had painted many members of the minor aristocracy – and she doubted that her aunt had any idea how much such a portrait might cost. But the possibility was certainly intriguing: the chance of meeting the famous artist, or even watching him at work, would be a remarkable opportunity. She had seen reproductions of his work in magazines and although his portraiture was of no interest to her whatsoever, the depictions of nature in his backgrounds – especially those wonderful trees and skies – were second to none.

Sarah was reading the rest of the letter: ‘Recalling Miss Butterfield’s interest in matters botanical, I have also arranged for the artist Mr Ehret to visit at the same time. We pray for clement weather which will enable us all to view Mr Hinchliffe’s garden together.’

‘How thoughtful. I am sure we will all enjoy that very much.’ Sarah sounded unconvinced. But Anna’s heart had begun to race with excitement: Georg Ehret, one of the most celebrated masters of botanical illustration! And she was to meet him tomorrow. She could scarcely wait.

The next day dawned grey and drizzly, and Anna spent the morning gazing anxiously at the sky, keen to detect any sign of the clouds lifting. Her stomach was full of butterflies.

Happily, by the time the carriage arrived the weather was clearing, the sun dimly visible through a thin veil of mist. Anna brought with her two sketchbooks of different sizes and a set of newly sharpened graphites. Even Lizzie’s persistent chatter for the entire journey could not dampen her sense of pleasurable anticipation.

Mr Ehret was already in attendance when they arrived: a tall, slim, middle-aged man with a prominent nose and rather bulbous lips, wearing a well-powdered wig and dressed soberly in a black jacket and waistcoat. On his feet were the shiniest black shoes she had seen in a long time.

At their entry he leapt to his feet, clipped his heels and, in response to Mrs Hinchliffe’s introductions, made a short, formal bow to each of the ladies in turn, repeating in strongly accented English, ‘Delighted, most delighted, I am sure.’

‘Our gracious hostess informs me that you too are an artist, Miss Butterfield?’ he said. ‘And that you are interested in botanical drawing?’

‘I am but a very amateur artist, sir. However, I have seen your work and am most honoured to meet you.’

‘Would you care to sit with me,’ he said, patting the place beside him on the chaise longue, ‘so that we may talk about painting?’ He glanced towards the window. ‘And then, if the sun decides to oblige us, we may take a walk to admire Mr Hinchliffe’s most admirable planting.’

Serious conversation was curtailed by the serving of tea and cakes, followed by further offerings and polite refusals. When she and Mr Ehret fell silent, her attention was drawn to the other side of the tea table where Susannah and Lizzie seemed already to have become the best of friends. Lizzie was quizzing the older girl about the entertainments in Bath.

‘Tall and slim, with the deepest brown eyes imaginable.’ Susannah lowered her voice, checking across the table to make sure her mother was not listening. ‘He’s in the Guards.’

‘Oooh, you are so lucky,’ Lizzie sighed. ‘I cannot wait to be eighteen.’

Susannah laughed gaily. ‘Of course! The more the merrier. It is so much fun.’

Anna forced herself to smile. From what she’d heard, the summer season at Bath was a market where mothers paraded their daughters in front of potential suitors like so many farmers showing off their sheep or cattle to meat buyers. The very idea filled her with horror.

The lively, informal conversation between Lizzie and Susannah only seemed to highlight her own difference: their shared enthusiasm for fashion, dancing and prospective husbands was a world away from her own, more serious interests in art, literature and the ways of the world. It made her feel even more like an outsider than ever.

At last the formalities were ended and as they set foot outside the sun came out to greet them. Losing her nerve at the last moment, she left the basket with sketchpad and pencils behind.

The garden was so much wider and longer than she had expected, hidden on all sides behind high brick walls. The parade of ladies, followed by Mr Ehret, strolled the gravelled paths between wide rectangular raised borders, exclaiming and sighing over the planting that, even in early September, provided a truly colourful display of Michaelmas daisies, dahlias and late roses as well as many foliage plants that Anna could not identify.

‘My dear Augusta, this truly is a sight to salve the soul,’ Aunt Sarah gushed. ‘How fortunate you are to have a wide expanse for your palette. In Spital Square we have such a cramped little outdoor space it seems barely worth the effort of planting it.’

Towards the end of the garden the path led between a row of espalier trees laden with red and golden apples to a handsome, vine-covered pergola shading three stone benches. Anna manoeuvred a seat next to Mr Ehret once more, who immediately began to examine the leaves of the vine, already starting to take on autumn colours.

‘You see,’ he said, plucking a leaf. ‘How the stalk has begun to go red from where it joins the stem, then gold towards the base of the leaf?’ Anna nodded, eager to absorb his observations. ‘And the leaf itself, it is such a beautiful thing, a fascinating study. The outermost points are the first to colour, and the area around the veins is the last,’ he said, pointing out the reddening edges and the golden skeleton of veins leading out from where the stalk was attached.

‘But there are still patches of green, between the red and yellow,’ Anna said. ‘How does that happen?’

‘Well observed, Miss Butterfield,’ Ehret said. ‘The truth is we do not yet know why this happens in some leaves and not in others. There is much careful study among botanists to try to divine how and why leaves colour and die in the winter. It is one of many mysteries we have not yet uncovered. In the meantime the best we can do is record it as faithfully as possible. That is my modest role in the great scientific adventure.’

He held the leaf up against the sun. ‘See how the light filters through in different ways, depending on the depth of colour?’ he said. ‘How the red is almost black, the yellow quite golden? And how the network of tiny capillaries now becomes clear?’

He leaned forward to point out another leaf, on which raindrops were still hanging. ‘This is fascinating,’ he said. ‘Each drop of water acts as a magnifying glass, so that we see the capillaries even more clearly as we look through it.’

Anna was enthralled. ‘For all my many hours of drawing, I feel I have been almost blind,’ she sighed.

‘Do not be concerned, my dear,’ he said with a kindly smile. ‘You have your whole life before you, and all you need to do is observe until you feel you know every detail of every leaf, every petal, every stalk. And then you must record, and look, and look again, and look yet again. From what I have been told you already have the talent, and I can see from the way you listen that you also have the passion to be a great artist one day.’

He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small sketchbook and a short, well-sharpened graphite with which he began, with the surest of hand, to draw in miniature the leaf with the drop of rain resting upon it.

‘The serrations of the leaf go thus . . . this curl of the leaf needs to be shaded like this to give us depth . . . but where we see the back of the leaf, observe this, it is much paler . . . the veins all meet at the apex of the stem, not partway up, as with some leaves. And here are our raindrops, two – no, three – in descending diameter . . . I leave the white paper to shine through to show how they glitter and refract the sunlight . . . thus.’

This was the ultimate lesson from a master of his art, and Anna knew that she must try to understand and remember every word. At last, the sketch was complete. He signed it with a flourish, tore it from his sketchbook and presented it to her.

‘Of course you must, my dear,’ he said, with the kindest smile. ‘I made it for you.’

Before she could object any further, they were interrupted by a raucous shout. ‘There you all are! I’ve been looking everywhere.’

‘Charles, my dearest,’ his mother called, as the gangly frame came striding down the path towards them. ‘We have been enjoying the late sunshine with Mr Ehret. Come and join us.’

Mr Ehret leapt to his feet in greeting, and Charles proceeded along the row of ladies, welcoming each in turn. When he came to Anna he held on to her hand a fraction longer, taking it to his lips. She felt his gaze piercing her, immobilising her like a butterfly pinioned inside a frame.

‘Miss Butterfield, what a pleasure. The city has been treating you well, I can see, for you are looking even more charming than I remember.’ He sat down beside her in the space that Mr Ehret had vacated. ‘Tell me what you have been up to since we last met.’

‘Not very much, I’m afraid,’ she replied. Although much had happened, none of it must ever be allowed to reach the Hinchliffes’ ears. ‘The city appears to be very quiet in August.’

‘Indeed. All sensible people leave the city in summertime,’ he said, apparently unaware of the affront his words might cause. ‘And how is my good friend William?’

‘He seems well, I think.’ In fact, she had noticed, over the past few days, that her cousin appeared even more subdued than ever. At first she’d put it down to worry over the money he owed and the issue of the French silk, but at supper the previous evening he had looked sweaty and a little bilious, and he left much of his plate untouched. He had left the table early, as was his custom, but had not rushed out as usual. She longed to find the opportunity to ask him whether he’d been able to repay the money she’d caught him stealing, but the right moment never seemed to arrive. Before she could leave the table herself, she’d heard him climbing the stairs to his room, and he was not seen for the rest of the evening.

‘Please tell him I will see him at the club tonight. He is expected. And may I call on you at the Sadler house, perhaps tomorrow or the next day?’ Charles was saying.

‘That would be delightful,’ she said. The air had cooled as the sun slipped downwards in the sky, and she suppressed a shiver.

Before long everyone agreed that it was too chilly to remain in the garden and Aunt Sarah declared that it was time to leave. As they said goodbye, Mr Ehret gave another of his formal little bows. ‘It was such a pleasure to talk to a fellow artist, Miss Butterfield. I do hope we have the opportunity to talk further in the not-too-distant future.’

‘Indeed I would like that very much,’ Anna said, her cheeks glowing pink from the compliment. ‘I shall try to practise what you have taught me, Mr Ehret. And I shall treasure your sketch for ever.’

‘My dear, I am unworthy of your flattery, but I thank you for it all the same,’ he said, bowing more deeply this time.

Betty was dispatched to buy fresh tea, milk, cakes and sweetmeats. ‘Girls, you will make the drawing room ready for our visitor,’ Sarah instructed. ‘Make sure the cushions are well plumped, and put out some appealing books and journals on the tables, my dears, so we may impress him with our wide-ranging interests. It often helps to stimulate a conversation of consequence. Lizzie, please practise your most charming pieces for the harpsichord in case we would like music to entertain us.’

When he arrived, Aunt Sarah insisted that Charles should take a seat beside Anna on the settle and, after they had finished tea and endured a further uncomfortable ten minutes of polite conversation, Lizzie was cajoled into playing the harpsichord and Sarah picked up her embroidery frame, moving to a seat by the window.

‘Don’t mind if I leave you young things to chat among yourselves, do you? I need the light for such close work. This handkerchief has been promised to a friend and I cannot delay.’ Anna observed these manoeuvres with amusement and a little unease. This was the carefully engineered opportunity Charles had been waiting for, even expecting.

The first time they met she had thought his eyes, so close-set either side of that prominent nose, rather piercing and unkindly, but his face seemed to have softened, the narrow cheeks filled out and less sallow.

‘Anna. I have so enjoyed the opportunity of getting to know you a little better but there is an additional purpose to my visit. On Saturday week we – that is, my family and I – are attending the annual autumn ball at the Inns of Court and it would be so very delightful if you were able to accompany us.’

Anna felt the blush spreading across her chest, so vulnerably exposed by the low neckline of her dress, up her neck and flooding her cheeks. Despite her misgivings, she was flattered that Charles thought enough of her to invite her to such an important event, at the Inns of Court, no less. But a ball? As the implication began to sink in, her head filled with terror. She’d heard of the elegant French-style dances that city folk enjoyed, but the closest she’d come to anything like it was at the assembly rooms in Halesworth and there they only did the polka and other country dances. How could she attend a proper ball with so little time to prepare? She had only ever tried to dance the minuet once in her life; that had been enough for her to appreciate how complex it was, how it needed to be accomplished with confidence and elegance. She would make a complete fool of herself.

‘Mr . . . Charlie. I do not think . . . without a chaperone . . . my uncle . . .’

‘Mr Sadler will be perfectly satisfied, do you not think, Mrs Sadler, when he hears that my mother, father and sister will be also there?’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Sarah responded instantly. She had been hanging on every word, of course, her embroidery neglected, the needle hanging loosely on its thread. ‘I am sure this would be perfectly acceptable.’

By the time Charles took his leave, all was settled. Afterwards Aunt Sarah, flushed with excitement, called her into the drawing room. ‘This is such a wonderful opportunity, my dear,’ she fluttered. ‘Just think, the Inns of Court – such a prestigious event. There will be so many important and influential people there. I am so pleased for you. We must make sure you are dressed in your very best. The sackback in the yellow damask, don’t you think? You do look most alluring in it. But you will need something warm to wear for the journeys – the evenings are drawing in so these days. A cloak? No? You have no cloak? Oh my goodness, we must get Miss Charlotte onto the task immediately.’

She fanned herself so violently with her embroidery frame that the needle flicked from its thread into a far corner of the room.

‘Charles is such a charming young man, do you not think? And with such prospects. A lawyer – just imagine? There is always work for a lawyer. We will have you settled by the end of the year, my dear, I can promise that. Oh, I cannot wait to tell your father.’

Anna’s heart recoiled, but she held her tongue. She must write to him straight away, before her aunt could do so. She did not want to be ‘settled’, like a business deal. She wanted to be in love.

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