by Liz Trenow
‘Where are your clothes?’ M. Lavalle asked.
‘If you can’t pay when you arrive, they take your clothes instead,’ Guy said, slumping back to the ground. ‘They’re vultures. If you can’t pay, you get nothing, no food, no drink, nothing. But who cares? I am going to die anyway, here or on the scaffold.’
‘We have brought money for bail. You could be out of here tomorrow.’
Guy shook his head. ‘My mother’s already offered. They won’t take it.’
‘We shall try, at least. What are you charged with?’
‘Causing affray, theft, damage to property, accomplice to murder. Every bloody sin under the sun, they’ve nailed it on me.’
‘Is there no one among your group who would testify to your innocence?’
‘It’s every man for himself. Who cares about a penniless Frenchie anyway?’
Guy’s face was an expression of misery so abject that it would remain seared in Henri’s memory for the rest of his life.
‘I thank you for your visit and the food, friends,’ he said at last. ‘I am sorry for the harsh words I have spoken lately. I’ve been a fool and deserve to die a fool’s death. Look after my mother for me.’
With that, he slid to the floor and curled up once more, tucking his knees to his forehead, with an arm over his head to shut out the world. M. Lavalle began to move towards the door, but Henri found himself fixed to the spot, reluctant to leave.
‘We’ll get you out of here, I promise,’ he whispered.
The two men silently retraced the gloomy corridors and inquired at the gates as to who they needed to see about bail. The judge, they were told, but he was not available. When they persisted, refusing to leave until they could speak to someone, they were ushered into a chaotic office piled high with papers and ledgers and told to wait.
Half an hour passed, and then another, and still no one arrived. At last a whey-faced clerk put his head around the door and, apparently surprised to see them, asked what they were doing there, and who they were waiting for.
A further twenty minutes passed before he returned.
‘There’s no bail for Guy Lemaitre,’ he said. ‘The judge has already turned it down.’
‘But can we not appeal?’ M. Lavalle said.
The man held up his palms.
‘Nothing I can do, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘That’s the decision of the court.’
As they passed through the prison gates out into the blessed sweetness of fresh air, the sunshine and birdsong seemed to mock them. They retraced their steps along Newgate Street, lost in their own thoughts. By tacit understanding, they found themselves climbing the grand stone steps of the cathedral, stepping beneath the portico and entering through tall wooden doors into the hushed silence of its enormous interior.
M. Lavalle moved to the nearest pew and slipped to his knees, bending his head in prayer, but Henri remained standing, almost forgetting to breathe, as he marvelled at the majesty of the interior, the intricacy of the carving on the marble walls, and the square pillars which soared up to multiple domes brilliantly depicting biblical scenes in gold, silver and every colour in the rainbow.
The very beauty of the place brought tears to his eyes and he began to feel light-headed, as though he had entered another world. His head started to spin, and then he heard his own voice, a disembodied bellow that reverberated in the silence of the vast space: ‘Pour l’amour du ciel, je vous en prie, sauvez mon ami!’
M. Lavalle was with him now, a warm arm about his shoulders, whispering, ‘Hush, hush, boy, come with me.’ He found himself being led out of the building to a bench in the bright sunlight where the old man sat quietly by his side, waiting for his sobs to subside.
The visit to Newgate left Henri with a deep and persistent anger in his belly. He had long since abandoned his faith in God but now he prayed each night. Or rather, these were not so much prayers as furious railings against the injustice of the world and the cruelty of the punishment being meted out to an innocent young man. Guy’s only failing was in wanting to make the world a fairer place. Perhaps he’d been hot-headed and unwise, but his motives were pure enough, so why was God treating him so shamefully?
M. Lavalle tried to reassure him that, behind the scenes, everything was being done to secure Guy’s release. The French church organised a daily rota of visitors taking food and drink, and letters were written to the court tendering a considerably larger amount of bail than M. Lavalle had been able to offer.
Discreet enquiries were made among other journeymen who’d taken part in the protest that night, but no one would admit to witnessing the moment when the weaver’s wife was threatened. Most of them, terrified of being in any way associated with the crime, denied being anywhere near.
Eventually an Irishman was found who claimed to be certain that Guy had not been involved, because he had seen him in The Dolphin at around the time of the raid. Everyone’s hopes were lifted when the man agreed to testify in Guy’s defence, but when they brought a lawyer to talk to him he had vanished, taking his wife and children with him, never to be seen again.
Weeks passed and each time Henri visited the prison Guy seemed thinner and more despairing. At last they learned that a date for the trial had been set for January.
There was nothing to do but wait.
The nights drew in, the weather became colder and occasional flurries of snow darkened the sky. Henri overheard Mariette and the cook making preparations for Christmas, discussing the cost of buying a whole goose and deciding that it was too expensive. ‘Half of it’s fat, anyway,’ Cook grumbled. They would make do with beef. They spent the whole morning working together on a large plum cake, soused liberally with brandy so that it would last until Epiphany.
This was usually one of his favourite times of the year, when feasts were planned, friends gathered and the house was decorated with greenery collected from the woods and fields beyond Bethnal Green. It was a time when he felt that he truly belonged in this adopted land, a country in which he and his fellow Protestants had no fear of reprisals should they wish to worship freely, and in which he had his adopted family around him.
But this year Henri had little heart for such celebrations. Visions of Guy, despairing in the hell of the prison, and the sounds of the crowd baying for the murderer’s blood crowded his mind each night as he waited for sleep. Even in this seemingly benign country of England, he was now so painfully aware that there were forces to be afraid of.
The only way of quelling his anxiety was through intense application to work, specifically to his master piece. Fearing the horrors of his own thoughts, he found himself toiling through the night to finalise the point-paper translation of Anna’s design, and then devising the complicated organisation of the components of the loom, the range of colours needed for warp and weft, and the arrangement of lashes and simples that would bring the colours to the front of the fabric. The weave was so demanding that he made several false starts with the set-up, but finally he was able to begin weaving with reasonable confidence that the finished product would do justice to Anna’s artistry.
He loved this moment, when the shuttle made its initial passes through the warp, and the first few inches of cloth with the lines of the design began gradually to emerge, weft thread by weft thread. The work was painfully slow because the design required so many changes of the treadles at his feet and of the shuttles introducing each new weft colour. The drawboy, sleepy and sluggish in the cold, made frequent mistakes, pulling the lashes in the wrong order.
It was a more complex design than Henri had ever tackled, and he found himself exhausted by the need for constant concentration to avoid making costly errors. With each inch of fabric woven the pressure for accuracy grew greater. The further into the weave, should a mistake later be discovered, the more hours of work might be lost, and precious bobbins of dyed and twisted silk yarn wasted.
As the elegant curves and images of Anna’s sketch began to emerge into woven fabric, he felt her pr
esence, as if looking over his shoulder, approving. Sometimes he found himself talking to her in his head: Is this green right, do you think? Or should it be paler? or The curve is so shallow here, I cannot conceal the steps entirely. Will you forgive me?
If he should leave the loom for a while, perhaps to take a meal, on returning his heart would leap with the thrill of seeing afresh how the design was unfolding, how the network of curled stems was taking shape, supporting those delicately furled leaves and natural-looking blooms. When, at a foot and a half in, he reached the point where the tiny beetle emerged into the weave, he found himself close to tears, his chest bursting with a tender joy.
He worked long hours each day, often perforce by candlelight at this darkest time of the year, only giving up if a warp thread broke that could not be recovered in the dim light of a candle or, more often, when the weary drawboy finally fell asleep over his lashes.
He had not replied to Anna’s letter, for he had no idea what to say. Much as he yearned for her presence and longed to see her again, the tough words of his mother and the events of the past weeks had brought everything into a different perspective, harsh-lit by his friend’s adversity. He had returned to the prison twice since that first visit, taking food and clothing. The church elders had offered to pay for him to have a single cell, but Guy had refused. ‘How could I bear the silence of my own company,’ he said, ‘when all I have to contemplate is a life of misery? They are villains, this lot, but they are companions all the same.’
It could just as easily have been me in that prison, had I not the support and guidance of a good and generous master, Henri thought to himself. His own life and Guy’s had been so similar, both of them having endured terrible loss and hardship before finding themselves in the world of silk by pure good fortune, and both having worked hard to come from nothing to become skilled craftspeople. How could he turn his back on the good fortune which had befallen him, by turning down his master’s remarkable offer?
Nothing had been said since that first conversation. As December was usually a slow time for new commissions M. Lavalle was rarely in his office and frequently out on external duties: at the church, where they were preparing, as usual, to help the needy at Christmas, and at the Weavers’ Company, where they were making ready for the intake of silk masters in the New Year. Mariette was her usual friendly self, not overly flirtatious and apparently unaware of her father’s intervention.
Two weeks before Christmas, Henri completed his master piece.
‘It is a triumph,’ M. Lavalle said, clapping him several times on the back. ‘You have fulfilled my highest expectations, lad. I cannot imagine any circumstances under which you will not be accepted by the Company in January. Welcome, Master Vendôme.’
As the old man scrutinised the weave, using his small magnifying glass, the colours and shapes glittered and glinted in the firelight, giving an appearance that the stems and flowers were actually stirring in a gentle breeze. Seeing the silk through his master’s eyes for the first time, Henri realised that it was indeed beautiful, and the naturalism of the lines extraordinary.
‘This is of exceptional quality, Henri,’ M. Lavalle said. ‘The technical complexity is utterly unlike anything I have ever seen, even from the great designer-weavers of the old days, Leman and the rest. And yet it has a wonderfully contemporary look. It’ll be snapped up by fashionable ladies and become the next big thing, I’ll be bound.’ He laughed. ‘You’ll be weaving nothing but yards of this very design for the next few months. You might become sick of the sight of it, but you will certainly make a good start on your fortune.’
Henri felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. His master’s praise was rarely so fulsome.
M. Lavalle put down the silk and took up his clay pipe, charged it, lit it and took a long draw. ‘You have a great future ahead of you, my son, if that is what I may call you?’
He means son-in-law, Henri thought to himself. It felt comforting, as though, after all, the mantle could sit quite easily about his shoulders. ‘I am proud that you should regard me as such,’ he said.
‘Daughter, come and see what our clever boy has produced,’ M. Lavalle called. ‘And bring a new bottle of port and three glasses so that we can celebrate.’
Mariette held the silk to the light. ‘Oh . . . my . . . goodness,’ she whispered on an indrawn breath. ‘You wove this?’
Before he knew it she had wrapped her arms about him, in a surprisingly powerful embrace. He could feel the warmth of her body against his and her heart beating against his chest. In the joy of the moment he wondered whether he could, in fact, fall in love with the girl.
Loosening her hold at last, she turned to pick up the silk, examining the design and discovering, with a delighted laugh, the tiny beetle clinging to the curled leaf. She unfurled the length and wrapped it around her waist, like a skirt, doing a slow flirtatious twirl before the two men, wriggling her hips and fluttering her eyelashes, laughing all the while.
‘I must have a dress of it, Papa. For my first ball gown.’
‘We’ll have to see,’ he muttered.
‘And you shall be my dancing partner, Henri.’
She took hold of his hand and then, humming the tune of a sprightly dance, began to skip around the room, pulling him along with her. M. Lavalle watched from his chair, beaming with approval and clapping out the rhythm as the couple made their way across the parlour and back again. Henri felt clumsy and ungainly, but was drawn along by the sheer elation of Mariette’s enjoyment and his own relief at finally having completed what was surely the most important piece of work in his life.
As they danced, the fire blazing cheerfully, its light glinting off the panelling, and the heat of the port travelling through his veins, his thoughts turned to Guy. The desperate situation faced by his friend only served to emphasise his own good fortune. Fate could be so capricious, one’s hold on life so fragile. But, at least for the moment, this was his: his world, his place, his people and, in time, he would wed Mariette. They loved him, he loved them. This was where he belonged.
How could he have imagined otherwise?
There was no alternative but to acknowledge the truth that had lurked in his heart like a monster: there was no future in his friendship with Anna. He’d hoped that, by ignoring it, this truth might somehow go away, but now, he knew, the issue must be settled, sooner rather than later. It was only fair to the girl, and he needed to move on, to accept the future that had been planned for him.
Later that evening he took up his quill and, with a profound sadness, began to write.
Dear Anna,
The work is nearly finished and I write to thank you again. The fabric looks well and my master is pleased. But of the matter you ask me I cannot help you more. I am sorry. You are an artist of good talent and I wish you sucess, but I know that we must not meet again.
H
17
No lady should drink wine at dinner. Even if her head is strong enough to bear it, she will find her cheeks, soon after the indulgence, flushed, hot, and uncomfortable; and if the room is warm, and the dinner a long one, she will probably pay the penalty of her folly, by having a headache all the evening.
– The Lady’s Book of Manners
The letter arrived with the rest of the family’s mail, brought by Betty to the breakfast table. As she recognised the writing Anna felt a knot of excitement growing in her chest, almost stopping her breath.
‘Who is it from?’ Aunt Sarah enquired, peering across the table.
‘A friend from home,’ she lied.
‘Not bad news, I hope? Here, take the letter knife.’
‘Thank you, Aunt, but I will open it later. I do not wish to disturb my delicious breakfast.’
Her appetite had vanished, and she struggled to eat the slice of meat pie already on her plate. At last the meal was over and she ran to her room with Lizzie hot on her heels.
‘Later, Cousin,’ Anna said, turning her away. ‘You must allow me my priva
cy.’
She tore open the letter, and at first she could not understand what it said. We must not meet again. As the meaning became clear, a wave of nausea coursed through her body.
‘No!’ she gasped, throwing her face into the bolster to muffle her sobs. Why would he write such a thing? There must have been a terrible misunderstanding.
After a while she sat up and read the few lines over and over again, barely able to believe what she was seeing. What could she possibly have done to deserve such a final, terrible rejection? In her mind, she interrogated every moment that she could remember of their few meetings: at the church, at Miss Charlotte’s and then at Wood Street.
She recalled the moment at the bottom of the weaving loft ladder and his words: Please let us find a way. Surely she cannot have imagined the powerful feelings she had believed to be so utterly mutual at that moment? Her mind veered wildly, visualising possible scenarios. Had Aunt Sarah forced Charlotte into admitting who they had visited that afternoon? Had she then gone to see Henri to warn him off? No, she felt sure that Miss Charlotte would never betray her like that. And Aunt Sarah deigning to visit a French weaver at his house? Very unlikely.
She went to the window and peered down into the square, to the spot where she had encountered Henri and Guy sitting on the wall beneath the trees; where she had once seen his figure approaching the house, delivering his first letter. How long ago it seemed.
A few flakes of early snow were falling from a leaden sky and people were scurrying about their business with cloaks and shawls wrapped tightly around heads and shoulders. She turned and picked up the letter again, reading its final phrase: I know that we must not meet again.
