8

Damask: a silk stuff with reversible pattern woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin weave and the ground in weft-faced or sateen weave.

The two months before Christmas are the busiest of the year in my shop, with clients demanding reassurances that their gowns will be ready for the round of balls and other social gatherings that seem to be necessary to celebrate the birth of Christ. What He would have made of it, heaven knows, but it keeps my coffers well filled and for that I am most truly grateful.

Not that I need much for myself, other than to pay the rent and my own modest living expenses, but I am pleased to be able to pay my seamstresses generously for their overtime since many of them are raising families on their own, or have the disadvantage of useless husbands. When I hear their unhappy tales it makes me glad that I only have myself to worry about. We cannot all be so fortunate as to find a love like Anna’s.

In my few moments of spare time, often late in the evening, I began work on Peter’s jacket. There were a couple of yards of dark blue damask remaining from a customer’s order that she had allowed me to keep. I measured it out carefully, and then measured it again, to make absolutely sure that it would be enough. It was the perfect shade for a young boy and I chose the latest style, of course; for although Ambrose might disapprove of him looking too fashionable, Peter was already beginning to take pride in his appearance. I wanted him to feel special, proud of what my expertise could provide.

As I cut and pieced, tacked and sewed, every stitch seemed to hold my love. If I slipped – for when you are tired it is so easy to make a small mistake – I would unpick it, for there could be no covering up, or making do. A mother’s love is unconditional, it should never be perverted or distorted, and this embodiment of my own devotion must be perfect too.

What Louisa had told me had revived my curiosity about our mother. Although the information was still vague and incomplete, at least I now had something to work with. That evening, I wrote down:

She probably looked like me and Louisa

Her surname was Potton

She lived near the ‘night soil’ grounds close to Stepney Green

People thereabouts might still remember her

The following Sunday I took a coach eastwards. It was surprising to discover that so many more new houses and manufactories had been built between Spitalfields and Stepney Green that it was no longer a separate village, but an extension of London. The weather was chilly and grey, the streets quiet and all of the traders were closed.

I walked the length of the main street imagining my mother to be here, walking this same route, stopping to chat with people she knew. I had planned to stop one or two of the elderly residents to ask whether they might have known her, but few people passed. Only after several minutes did I realise that most of them would be in church.

That gave me a better idea: I could ask the vicar. I could see a church tower in the distance and headed for it. It was a fine, proud flint stone building, set in a wide acreage of churchyard crowded with headstones, the dead of centuries past laid out here. From inside there came the joyful sound of singing – a service was under way.

I began to walk between the graves, my eyes scouring the inscriptions on the stones. What a story they told: the plague must have hit this hamlet especially hard, for I counted numerous stones dating from those times, sometimes many dozens of names with the same date of death. Other stones were decorated with anchors and fishes, clearly the graves of sailors, dating back centuries. By the time I heard the final hymn being sung my legs ached and my eyes were burning. I must have read hundreds of names, but none of them was a Potton.

At last the congregation began to emerge. It took an age, for they all wanted to pass the time of day with their vicar, a fresh-faced youthful-looking fellow who seemed to have a glad word for every soul in his care. If anyone in this village had known my mother, it would have been him, or his predecessor.

He caught my eye and smiled. ‘I’ve seen you waiting, miss. Can I help you?’

‘I have a question, sir,’ I said.

‘Ask away,’ he said.

‘I am looking for any information about my mother. She lived hereabouts.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Potton. I have no Christian name.’

He frowned, and shook his head. ‘It is not a name I recognise. Is she still alive, do you know?’

‘I’m afraid she died some years ago,’ I said. ‘But I have searched your graveyard without any luck.’

‘Do you know where she lived?’

‘All I know is that she was very poor, and lived close to the night-soil pits.’

‘Ah, yes. Those pits are long gone,’ he said. ‘You will have seen the new houses being built? That is where they were. People tell me there were many poor souls squatting in those parts, but the builders threw them off the land; some ten or fifteen years ago, this would have been, long before I arrived here.’

I must have looked crestfallen because he added brightly, ‘But if you have a few moments, miss, I can let you look through our parish records, the births, marriages and deaths. It is possible that you may find what you are looking for there.’ He led me into the church and then through into the vestry, a dark, dusty-smelling room, lined with shelves on which were lodged dozens of leather-bound volumes.

‘Can you give me the approximate date when your mother lived here?’

‘I was born in June 1741, so perhaps around then?’

He searched for a few moments, running his fingers along the spines, before taking down three ledgers and placing them onto the table. ‘Births, marriages and deaths 1740–1750,’ he said. ‘Feel free to take your time.’

The first was titled Births, January 1740–December 1749. I turned to June 1741: John, Margaret, Jethro, Sarah, Susan, Marshall, Job, Lancelot, Henrietta, Iris and plenty more babies had been born in that month, but no Agnes. It seems that I was never registered, at least not in this parish.

I turned to the next: Marriages, January 1740–December 1749, and scanned page after page in hope of discovering whether I had a father. No Potton appeared.

Finally, I turned to Deaths, January 1740–December 1749. The lists made melancholy reading, especially because they included the names of so many babies and young children. How rare it was to find anyone who lived to the full three score years and ten that was promised to us in the old psalm. I turned each page with renewed optimism that I might discover at least when my mother died, and whether she had a grave somewhere. But there was not a single Potton among these pages either.

An hour and a half later I reached the last page of the final ledger, shivering with the cold and wondering whether my mother had actually ever existed. She seemed to have left so little trace of herself. Perhaps my sister had misremembered the name of the parish, and her records were elsewhere? Or she had another name altogether? Would I ever discover anything about my mother?

Tuesday afternoon is a half day for the seamstresses, and early closing for the shop. I was tidying the sewing room when I heard rapping at the front door.

At first I thought it might be the beggar girl, who had been in my thoughts these past few weeks, but squinting out of the window into the street below I saw a capacious lady standing on the doorstep, heavily wrapped in cloak and shawl against the weather. I would barely have recognised her but for the basket: the one in which Mrs Jane Hogarth carries the elderly pug dog that was the constant companion of her dear late husband, and now cannot be separated from his mistress. She comes into the city less frequently since being widowed, which makes these visits all the more precious.

‘Dearest Charlotte,’ she said, beaming beneath the hood and shawl. ‘I hope this is convenient?’

‘Of course. Come in. I am always delighted to see you,’ I said. ‘Let me take your cloak.’ As she put down the basket to disrobe, the dog raised its head and gave a disgruntled growl.

‘It is a pleasure to see you too, Pug,’ I said. ‘Will you take tea, Jane? I have a fire in my room, if you think you can manage the stairs?’ She is broad of beam and close to her sixtieth year.

‘I’m sure I’ll manage. I was only planning to collect my new gloves and muff, but if you are not too busy, a cup of tea would be most welcome.’

By the time I returned with the tea she had puffed her way up the two flights of stairs and was settled into my most comfortable chair, with the dog nestled contentedly in her lap. ‘I hope you don’t mind me bringing this old thing? I find it a great comfort, you know, like having a part of him with me.’

In his later years William had rarely left their country retreat, claiming that he could not leave his precious dog. ‘Hates the noise and the cobblestones in the city, poor old boy,’ he used to say. I did not realise it then, but William had become increasingly melancholic after a very public row over one of his satirical prints, and was already beginning to suffer ill health. Since his death, Jane had rented out the London house and retired almost permanently to the countryside.

I poured and she took a sip. ‘Hmm, this is delicious tea.’

‘It’s a Pekoe. A present from my sister.’

‘What a generous gift. And she has good taste, too.’

‘Ambrose buys from a special trader he met working in the London parish.’

‘Indeed. Vicars have to drink a lot of tea,’ she said, laughing as she accepted a shortbread biscuit – another gift, this time from a satisfied customer.

‘I have missed you, Jane. How is Chiswick?’ I said.

‘All is well, dearest,’ she said. ‘We love it there. I only come up to town to shop. But today I had a few hours to spare, so I also dropped in to the Hospital – they persuaded me to take William’s place on the committee, you know, and they do such good work.’

I nodded. It may have been a hard childhood, but I knew they had probably saved my life.

‘When I arrived, I found a baby on the step – we often do, you know. When mothers aren’t lucky in the draw and get turned away, they are so desperate they just leave them.’

‘The poor things,’ I said, thinking of the young woman I’d seen in the street.

‘It was alive, just about. And when they unwrapped him, they found this.’

As she reached into her pocket, took out a scrap of paper and handed it to me, my heart jumped in my chest. It read: Lamb’s Conduit Field, Bloomsbury. And then, below, Miss Charlotte, Costumière, Draper’s Lane.

‘You don’t think . . .’ I began to gabble. ‘It’s not mine, you know?’

‘Of course I know that, you silly,’ she said. ‘But I assume you are somehow acquainted with the mother?’

‘It was a young girl I met in the street some weeks ago. She was so desperate. I told her about the Hospital and gave her my address so that she could tell me how she got on.’

‘Well, her ploy worked. The baby was skinny but otherwise healthy, so I persuaded them to take him in and he’ll be sent to a foster mother for feeding up. With a bit of luck he will survive.’

I hugged her. ‘Thank you so much, Jane. Oh, I would so like to be able to tell her that her baby is safe and well.’

‘She knows where you are. Perhaps she will call in one day, when she has recovered from her sorrow.’

How could I explain that giving away your child is something from which you never recover? Although I had agreed to the arrangement for Louisa and Ambrose to adopt my baby – there being no other option – I had never really acknowledged in my heart that I would, quite literally, have to ‘give him up’. I was sent away to a convent to give birth and from the very instant of seeing him, my love was utterly overwhelming and he never left my arms. Those first few days were perfect, just him and me in our own little world in the sparse cell, the nuns bringing me food and drink. I had no thoughts of the future. The present moment was all that mattered.

Handing my baby over to the wet nurse sent by Ambrose to collect him four days later felt like having a knife thrust into my heart, a genuine physical pain that I still experience even now, whenever I think about that day. There was nothing the nuns could do to console me. My empty belly remained round as though nature was mocking me, my breasts burned with unwanted milk. Returning to my cell without him was the purest agony, and the only relief to be gained was through the distraction of exercise. For three whole days and nights I walked, almost without ceasing, along the gloomy cavernous convent corridors, until one evening they found me collapsed and half-frozen in a remote, unfrequented corner.

In my delirium I believed that my baby was back in my arms once more. I crooned to him, sang him lullabies, put him to my breast. Perhaps in an attempt to bring me back to reality, the nuns read me Louisa’s letters, in which she described how well he was faring and how grateful they both were for my allowing them to adopt him as their own. Slowly I began to recover my physical strength, but my mind was broken. I had no idea who I was any more.

‘This has been most pleasant, dearest Charlotte,’ Jane said. ‘But it is already growing dark and I must be on my way.’ She gathered her shawl around her shoulders and bent down to retrieve the dog, who growled sleepily as she lifted him into his basket.

‘I have your muff and gloves parcelled up, ready. Please send my best wishes to your sister-in-law, Ann. I hope you will call again before too long?’

We made our slow way down the first flight of stairs to the landing, where she paused to look into the sewing room. ‘It is so reminiscent of Ann’s shop, it makes me quite nostalgic,’ she said. ‘But how well I recall our first visit here. We were all so excited for you.’

Just a few days after the shop had opened, Jane and her sister-in-law Ann had arrived with orders: a brand new waistcoat for William and a cape for Mary Lewis, her dear cousin and constant companion who lived with them, as well as some garments for alteration.

‘You were my first real customers. I was so excited.’

‘William cherished that waistcoat until the day he died,’ Jane said. ‘In fact, we buried him in it.’ The sorrow etched on her face turned to a sweet smile. ‘I have known there was something about you ever since I first met you as a little girl, Charlotte, but I never imagined that you would have your very own business, and at such a young age.’

When her own business closed, Ann had given me the addresses of three seamstresses, with wise words that have stayed with me ever since: ‘Never scrimp on staff, Charlotte. Choose good people whom you trust, and pay them well. They will reward you with fine work and bring customers back again and again.’

‘Mrs Taylor is still with me, also Elsie and Sarah.’

‘The redoubtable Mrs T.,’ she laughed. ‘Ann will be pleased to hear it. She has instructed that I must not leave without finding out how your business fares.’

‘I could not manage without her.’ I put a hand on her arm. ‘I could never have done it without you. You have been like the mother I never had.’

‘And you the daughter who was never truly mine. We are all so proud of you.’ She placed her hand over mine, pressing it affectionately. What good fortune had brought me to this place, and surrounded me with the best of friends.

We continued downstairs to the showroom where, as I retrieved her parcel and her cloak, she went to examine the gowns on the dressmakers’ dummies in the window – ‘what charming styles they wear these days’ – and then turned to embrace me. Then something made her halt, her eyes fixed to the counter where I lay out silks for inspection. In the corner lay the pagoda silk.

‘Great heavens,’ she said, with a little gasp.

She went to the counter and took up the silk, unfolding it and examining it, the silver threads glinting in the last rays of light from the windows, looking at it for a very long time without a word.

‘It is that silk,’ she murmured. ‘Wherever did you get it from, my dearest?’

‘It’s just a short reel-end my friend bought at auction, and there is something about it that makes it familiar to me,’ I said. ‘But perhaps it was at your house?’

‘My dear,’ she said, gently. ‘I have indeed seen this silk once before. There is something I need to explain.’