by Liz Trenow
Miss Charlotte was rummaging through a drawer behind the counter. ‘I have something here that might inspire you even further, Monsieur Vendôme,’ she said, pulling out a small piece of silk and unfolding it onto the counter. ‘It is the remnants from a gown I made a long time ago from French silk – legally imported, I might add.’
It was a bold pattern of large, blowsy and brightly coloured roses and peonies, surrounded by luxuriant foliage on an eggshell-blue background. The designs were powerfully realistic.
‘I can see what you are thinking,’ she said. ‘This would not be considered fashionable today, but it demonstrates a technique the Lyonnaise weavers were using in those days – I think it was first used by a designer called Jean Revel – which allowed them to introduce shading. It was called points rentrées. Perhaps your Monsieur Lavalle will know of this, Henri?’
He lifted the silk close to his eye, regretting that he did not have with him the magnifying lens they used to scrutinise the weave of fabrics. He recognised the technique: warp and weft threads of different shades were interlocked to create gentle, subtle edges to flowers and leaves, rather than the more usual method which created a defined line. He had seen it in the designers of an earlier age – Leman and the like – that he had studied during his apprenticeship, but evidently it had been abandoned as the fashion wheel turned to smaller, less brightly coloured floral designs.
It was as though a key had turned, unlocking the mystery. All he needed to do was to figure out how to rig the lashes and simples on his loom to recreate Revel’s innovation on a much smaller scale, which would reproduce the shading effects of Anna’s graphite pen.
‘Miss Charlotte, vous êtes merveilleuse,’ he said. ‘You have answered my problem.’
‘What is it you have seen?’ Anna said. ‘Do explain.’
‘I will try my best,’ Henri said.
‘Then let us all listen in comfort,’ Miss Charlotte said. ‘Miss Butterfield, we were about to take tea in the parlour. Do you have a few minutes to join us?’
13
No young lady should go to a ball, without the protection of a married lady, or an elderly gentleman.
– The Lady’s Book of Manners
My dearest father,
Today has been the happiest of my life so far in London, for I have made a friend. Her name is Charlotte, and she is a dressmaker – or more correctly I should call her a ‘costumière’, for that is what it says over the door to her shop. She has made all my gowns most beautifully and today I collected the most delicious velvet cloak with a fur collar and muff to match. I shall be the warmest girl in town!
She is really the most admirable person, independent and unmarried as far as I can tell and conducting what seems to be a very successful business all on her own account. Today, when I went to collect the cloak, she invited me into her parlour for tea and we had the most delightful conversation about art and fashion.
What I most admire is that she appears unconcerned regarding social status. Despite being in ‘trade’, as Aunt Sarah would say, Charlotte speaks to everyone: society folk and working folk, men and women, in the same straightforward way without being patronising or obsequious. It is as if, in her mind, all classes and both sexes are perfectly equal. How wonderful it would be if we were all to be treated so.
Please do not mention this to Uncle or Aunt for I am sure they would not approve. But I am so delighted with my afternoon that I simply had to share it with someone.
Oh, and Aunt Sarah will doubtless write to you regarding an invitation I have received to a ball at the Inns of Court, by a young man called Charles Hinchliffe, a lawyer. She thinks he is the perfect match for me. He is interesting, but I feel little for him, so although she is very excited about this, please do not hold your breath for news of any developments in that quarter!
Give Jane a big hug for me, and tell her that I will write to her again very soon.
Your loving daughter,
Anna
‘You look like the cat that drank the cream, Anna,’ Lizzie remarked at supper, and Aunt Sarah added, ‘You certainly have a bloom to your cheek this evening, Niece. Have you received some good news from home, perhaps?’
Anna managed to deflect their questions without lying: ‘It is just that I am so delighted with my new cloak, dearest Aunt, and the muff, that I cannot help smiling with the pleasure of it. Thank you so much for your great generosity.’
Her letter told only one part of the story, of course: her joy was two-fold. She had genuinely enjoyed getting to know Charlotte better, and felt an increasing respect for her independent way of living, her confident manner and strength of character. She certainly would like to count her as a friend, although she had no idea whether the affection would be reciprocated.
But by far the larger part of Anna’s elation, the part that made her smile for no apparent reason and caused a catch in her breath when she thought about it, was the serendipity of meeting with Henri. It felt like an unexpected and joyful gift, to have had the opportunity of being able to converse naturally with him, as an equal, without guilt or fear of being found out.
The content of that conversation had been fascinating and challenging: they started with a discussion about Hogarth’s The Analysis of Beauty, with Charlotte giving her opinion on how it might apply to the world of fashion. This was followed by Henri’s explanation of points rentrées and how he hoped to set up his loom to achieve the realism of her sketch. When Anna ventured to mention Mr Ehret, they both seemed to have heard of him and were impressed that she had actually had the chance to discuss botanical drawing with such a respected master.
Throughout all of the discussion, Anna struggled to tear her eyes away from Henri’s face. She was simply captivated by him: the intense chestnut brown of his eyes, his olive skin and his broken English, his modesty and his easy sense of humour. She was enthralled by the breadth of his knowledge and obvious confidence when talking about his work.
When he spoke of his master and of his widowed mother it was with such love and respect that she immediately wanted to meet them, to tell them how fortunate they were to have such a young man in their lives. Now, she felt his absence as an almost physical ache and yearned to see him again, to get to know more of him and to share more of herself with him.
And yet, she remembered with a sudden unpleasant jolt, there really was no future in such a friendship. She was here in London to find a wealthy husband and it was madness to entertain fancies about a poor journeyman silk weaver, a Frenchman at that. Besides, in the eyes of her aunt, she was practically engaged to Charlie Hinchliffe. Sarah was convinced that the invitation to the ball, which was to take place in just three days’ time, was a declaration of intent, and a proposal would shortly follow. Anna could not decide what she felt about such a prospect.
A part of her was flattered because Charles was undoubtedly what her aunt called ‘a good match’. Before long he would surely be a man of some means – so long as he could curb his gambling habits – and would keep his wife and her dependents in some comfort. But, try as she might to reassure herself, she could imagine no joy in such a life. She would become mistress of the house and an elegant lady, an ornament in Charles’s life to charm his wealthy clients and aid his rise in society. How does any woman manage to endure such a pointless existence? she sighed to herself. I would surely die of boredom within a year.
But what else could a woman do, when men seemed to hold all the power and all the purse strings? If only she had a skill with which she could earn a living, like Miss Charlotte. But apart from keeping house, doing laundry and cooking meals she had none, and who wanted to be a housekeeper for the rest of their lives? She could paint, of course, and improve her technique on the harpsichord, but there was no living in those aptitudes save perhaps becoming a governess, and that always seemed such a sad and lonely existence. She felt like a rat caught in a cage, tearing desperately and fruitlessly at the wire mesh walls, refusing to accept the inevitable.
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Finding no solution, she decided to put the problem to the back of her mind and concentrate on more appealing matters.
For a start, she needed to address her concerns about the sketch for Henri. At Charlotte’s showroom she had seen it with new eyes, and had become uncomfortably aware of its shortcomings. How poor it was, how amateur, how sloppily observed and hastily executed. She could instantly note its artistic flaws, the lack of symmetry, the unrealistic shapes of the leaves, the way that the stems were the same width as they curved from the bottom to the top of the page, not narrowing as they would in nature. How much better it could have been had she applied the lessons Mr Ehret had since taught her.
Before leaving Miss Charlotte’s shop, she had asked Henri whether he would allow her to do further work on it, to make the floral figures even more naturalistic, perhaps to add some colour wash. He had protested that it was perfectly lovely as it was but had then concurred, so long as she did not change it too much. She promised to supply a new version to him within the week.
The following day, after breakfast, she retired to her room and sat at the table by the window, attempting to recreate the sketch. With each try, her confidence in its artistry diminished. What on earth is wrong with me? she berated herself, scrunching another wasted sheet of paper into a ball and hurling it at the wall. I have no talent, no inspiration, no ability at all. What a mess. It’s hopeless.
She flung herself onto the unyielding mattress and closed her eyes. A sequence of images flickered on the inside of her eyelids: of the lines and curves flowing from Mr Ehret’s pencil, of the raindrops gleaming, and of shades of red and orange spilling over the autumn leaves. She was in the Hinchliffes’ garden again with Mr Ehret’s voice in her ear exhorting her to ‘look, look and look again’.
The bells of Christ Church, pealing midday, woke her from the reverie. She realised what she had been doing wrong, and what she now needed to do.
After lunch, she asked Betty to accompany her to the market. There, she returned to the wild flower stall – relieved to discover that the ruddy-faced woman had been replaced by a man – and spent nearly two shillings on bunches of sea lavender, yellow tree lupin, sea holly and heathers of different hues. Returning home, she carried up to her room a large pitcher of water, and arranged the flowers into a display that lifted her heart, calling to mind the late summer days in her village on the edge of the sea.
Now, she said to herself, I can do justice to Mr Ehret’s advice.
By the end of the following day, despite frequent interruptions from Lizzie, she had recreated her original sketch with its sinuous curved trellis of bindweed stems, but with much more detail in the botanical depictions: the veining on leaves, the shadows on a curled petal, flowers in bud, flowers in full glorious display, and flowers creased and drooping as they faded, and raindrops nestling in the apex of a stalk. Even a small black beetle which fell out of the wild flower arrangement onto her table made an appearance in the finished drawing.
Now she applied watercolour, using her old box of paints brought from Suffolk and, when this had dried, added chalk shading and retraced some of the lines with ink for added emphasis.
She propped the finished painting onto the dresser and sat back on the bed to study it from a better distance. It is good, she thought to herself, much improved, the colour and shading producing greater depth and realism. Finally satisfied with what she had produced, she rolled it into a cylinder, wrapping another sheet around it for protection, and attached a label with Henri’s name and address. Now she just had to find a way of getting it delivered without prompting awkward questions.
The day of the Inns of Court ball was looming and Anna had begun to fret about her lack of accomplishment in dancing. In the family library she had discovered a book entitled The Art of Dancing, and had done her best to follow the complicated floor diagrams that demonstrated through a series of curved lines and arrows where one’s feet should go. But without the music she found it impossible to gain any sense of the timing or rhythm, or, indeed, what her arms and hands should be doing. Each time she tried, the task appeared more hopeless. Although she could not bring herself to admit her failings, it seemed they had already been detected.
‘We must make sure that you are fully prepared for the ball, dearest Niece,’ Aunt Sarah declared at supper that evening. ‘Are you familiar with the French style of dance, my dear?’
‘I fear not, Aunt. I am woefully ignorant of the matter.’
‘Then I shall engage a dancing master forthwith. Mrs Hinchliffe recommended an excellent fellow who taught Susannah most successfully. I shall request his services, with a harpsichord accompanist, for tomorrow and Friday morning.’
‘You said I could take lessons also,’ Lizzie whined. ‘It will not be long before I am invited to a dance, and surely I too must be prepared.’
‘You may watch and learn, Lizzie,’ her mother said firmly. ‘When the time comes we shall arrange lessons especially for you. But for now the priority is to ensure that Anna is presented at her very best, is it not, Mr Sadler?’
Uncle Joseph grunted into his glass of claret.
‘Monsieur le Montagne’ managed to maintain the French accent for most of the lesson, only slipping into his native cockney when Anna’s ineptitude led him to extremes of frustration. He was not an attractive man, white-wigged and over-rouged – ‘a proper macaroni’, Lizzie observed – in an overtight silk jacket and breeches with only slightly stained white stockings. But he was perfectly polite and pleasant in demeanour, and thoroughly professional in his approach.
‘In zee minuet we are making a beeootiful painting across the floor with our feet, Miss Butterfield, like zis,’ he said, demonstrating. They had pushed back the chairs and rolled up the rug in the drawing room, exposing cracked and unsecured floorboards, which made ‘painting with zee feet’ a tricky affair.
‘We have our feet turned out slightly, like zis, which is noble. Never turned in, like zis, which is grotesque.’ He frowned like a gargoyle. ‘First we are on our tiptoes and then we bend, you see,’ he said, dipping and rising for all the world like the drakes on the village pond at mating time, Anna thought, struggling to suppress a fit of laughter.
‘We bend,’ he repeated, ‘and we create zee beautiful serpentine shape, like a river, with our feet, our hands and our . . . erm . . .’ He ran his hands through the air as if around the curves of an imaginary woman. ‘Comme ça.’
‘It is like Hogarth. He says the serpentine curve is the essence of beauty.’
M. le Montagne smiled benignly at his pupil. ‘Indeed, Miss Butterfield. How clever of you. Mr Hogarth also declares zat zee minuet is zee perfection of all dancing. Now, let us try again. Remember, no hurrying, no looking at your feet. Gentle fingers, elegant arms, held in opposition to zee direction of your feet. Zat is correct. Now, one, two and three . . . sink, rise, bend.’
Over and over again she tried and failed to meet his exacting requirements but slowly, as the three hours passed, she gained confidence and made fewer mistakes. Aunt Sarah and Lizzie applauded encouragingly from the sidelines. ‘You’ve nearly got it, Anna. By tomorrow it will be perfect,’ her cousin cried.
‘At least I am not important enough for anyone to take notice of me. They will all be watching the other dancers,’ Anna said, sipping from the glass of water her aunt had thoughtfully provided.
‘Oh no,’ M. le Montagne piped up. ‘Each couple must dance separately, that is the point of the minuet.’
‘You mean everyone at the ball will be watching me?’ Her elation turned to terror.
‘Yes, I am afraid so,’ he said. ‘I regret that our time is up for today but tomorrow we shall perfect your dance and I promise you will be the belle of the ball. Au revoir, madame, mesdemoiselles,’ he said, bowing deeply to each of the ladies in turn. ‘À demain.’
Anna was exhausted from the morning’s exertions, but there was to be no rest. The afternoon was fully consumed with considerations of dress and o
ther details: which hairstyle, which shoes, which stockings, which rouge, which blacking for her eyebrows, which parfum, which fan – the painted silk or the lace? Letters were composed to Miss Charlotte and a visit arranged for the following morning to collect various other items that Aunt Sarah deemed vital: a silk scarf in the same yellow damask as the dress, lace lappets for her hair with yellow ribbons, and a fan to match.
Then there was a full half-hour lesson on how to use the fan.
‘Refrain from placing your fingers to its tip,’ Aunt Sarah said, demonstrating. ‘It will be taken as an invitation that you wish to talk to the person you are looking at. And never, ever, in any circumstances, close it by drawing it through your hand like this.’
‘Why is that so bad?’ Lizzie asked.
‘It is supposed to convey that you hate the person you are with.’
Anna laughed. ‘I doubt many men trouble themselves to learn the language of the fan.’
‘That’s as may be,’ her aunt replied, pursing her lips. ‘But the other ladies will, and word will spread soon enough.’
Lizzie took up another fan and put it to her lips. ‘What does this mean, Mama?’
Aunt Sarah coloured and snatched the fan away. ‘Do not let me ever see you doing that again, Lizzie.’
When her aunt was not listening, Anna pressed her cousin for the meaning.
‘It means “kiss me”.’
‘I’ll avoid that one, then.’
‘Do you not want Charlie to kiss you? If you are going to marry someone, surely that is what you most desire?’
‘Hush, Lizzie,’ Anna scolded. ‘Let us not run ahead of ourselves.’
Later, in her room, she pondered her reaction. Why did she not thrill at the thought of Charlie kissing her? Was that not what a young woman most wanted, when romance blossomed? He was a nice enough man of good means, who talked with her most respectfully. But when she thought of him, she saw those long limbs, bony cheeks and the Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Would she ever, even in time, find him attractive enough to want to kiss him – or take part in those other things her mother had once darkly hinted at but about which she had very little notion?
