The Silk Weaver

by Liz Trenow

  ‘It’s not all your fault, is it?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Had I owned up, we would have been paying off the customs duty week by week as Father promised the Company in the first place, and they wouldn’t now be demanding such a large whack, not to mention the fine.’

  ‘A fine, too?’

  ‘Four hundred pounds.’

  ‘That’s an impossible sum. Wherever could you find that?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘And what happens if you can’t pay it?’

  ‘Bankruptcy, probably.’

  The word felt like a slap. Anna knew what it meant, of course, but could hardly imagine it applying to Sadler & Son. ‘What would happen then?’

  ‘Unless we can pay off the debts by the start of January we’ll have to sell the business.’

  ‘And the house?’

  ‘That, too. It’s owned by the business.’

  ‘But where would we – I mean you – live?’

  He sighed. ‘Where do other people live? We’d have to rent, I suppose. Get other jobs to pay for it.’

  ‘Surely you have plenty of stock you could sell, to help pay off the debt?’

  ‘I’ve tried that.’

  ‘You tried what?’

  ‘Selling the rest of the French silks to an out-of-town mercer. But someone recognised them and traced them back to us. It only made matters worse – more duties to pay and another fine. The only silk we have left is what we’ve had on the stocks for months, years even, before everyone went into mourning for the old king. No one wants it. Fashion is so bloody fickle.’ He sighed again. ‘It’s such bad timing. Pa was about to bid for a commission to supply silk for the trousseau for the new queen.’

  ‘There is to be a new queen? I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘No one has. It’s just speculation. They won’t let young George stay unmarried for long, mark my words. He has to have a male heir, remember. All the mercers in the city are poised to make their fortune when the wedding’s announced.’

  ‘Goodness. I wonder who he’ll choose?’

  ‘There’s a rumour about a young German princess. But it doesn’t really matter, just so long as we are ready to offer something sumptuous and gloriously fashionable. Which, of course, we won’t be now.’

  They fell into silence. He picked up Charles’s letter and studied its few words again. ‘I’ve made such a mess of everything. And you got caught up in it – your betrothal and everything.’

  ‘Please do not trouble yourself about that, Cousin. I know he’s your friend, but to be honest, I do not love him. And his views are so different from mine.’

  ‘But he’s such a good match. What will you do instead? Or do you have another beau in mind?’

  ‘Please do not worry about me. I’ll just go home and live a quiet life in the country.’

  ‘Haste thee to a nunnery?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Having said it, she realised that her glib remark was the truth: she was desperate to get back to Suffolk, to see her father, and little Jane. Those familiar paths through the marshes, the sound of the sea. ‘I didn’t know you read Shakespeare.’

  ‘We men have hidden depths.’

  ‘Hidden so deep as to be invisible, much of the time.’

  It was his turn to laugh. ‘I’ll miss your tart little comments, Coz. I’ve found them quite refreshing. A girl of your intelligence won’t be happy in the country for long. And what about those plans to learn about silk design?’

  ‘Oh, I dare say I will find someone to teach me,’ she said, failing to convince herself. ‘There’s a thriving silk trade in Norwich, I’m told.’

  ‘Come back and see us sometime, won’t you?’

  A girl of your intelligence won’t be happy in the country for long. Anna pondered William’s words with a growing sense of despondency, recalling how bored she had sometimes felt in the village, how energised by the prospect of leaving. What if he was right? And yet she had found little contentment or pleasure here in the city.

  Was there anywhere that she would find long-term happiness?

  18

  He that places his supreme delight in a tavern, and is uneasy till he has drank away his senses, renders himself soon unfit for everything else: frolick at night is followed with pains and sickness in the morning, and then what was before the poison is administered as the cure.

  – Advice for apprentices and journeymen

  OR A sure guide to gain both esteem and an estate

  Guy’s trial was set for the first Monday of the New Year. It was still bitterly cold and the snow that fell on New Year’s Day had compacted into ugly brown ice on the streets, making it treacherous to venture outdoors. In the unheated weaving loft, the boys’ breath clouded the air and their fingers swiftly became numbed, making it impossible to throw the shuttle firmly, or feel for lost threads. They had to take frequent breaks to warm themselves by the kitchen range.

  On the day before the trial, Henri delivered his master piece, carefully rolled and wrapped against the weather, to the Weavers’ Hall in Basinghall Street. An officious clerk made him wait half an hour while producing a form on which he was required to write his name, age and address, and signature.

  As he read the address the clerk’s demeanour thawed. ‘A good man, Monsieur Lavalle,’ he said. ‘And a fine weaver. Was he your master too?’

  Henri nodded.

  ‘We shall be most interested to see your piece,’ the clerk said, smiling at last.

  Henri left the building so warmed by this encouragement that he failed to notice until almost back at Wood Street that his jacket buttons were still undone and his hat and gloves still in his pocket.

  M. Lavalle gave Henri time off to attend the trial. ‘You may not be able to alter the course of justice but it will give the lad succour to see a friendly face. But have a care,’ he added. ‘You are not allowed to speak in the court, or they could arrest you for contempt.’

  When he reached the courthouse there was such a crowd that Henri feared they might be waiting for another execution. On a noticeboard pinned outside, he found a list of all the trials taking place that day and, after much desperate scanning, spied what he sought: Guy’s name was among a list of more than twenty, including even some women, all indicted for breaking and entering, damage to property, carrying a dangerous weapon and intent to murder at the house of a weaver named Thomas Poor. Every journeyman in the area, it seemed, had turned out to support their fellow weavers, and they were in an ugly mood.

  The crush was so great it was impossible to reach the public gallery, so Henri waited in the corridor outside. Proceedings were slow to start because every official pronouncement was met with angry jeers and chants of ‘Justice for the innocent’. At last the court was silenced and, as the trial began, news passed in whispers through the crowd.

  ‘It’s John Valline that man Poor’s talking about now. They called him a son of a whore, and threatened to break down the door, he says.’

  ‘Is it Poor still talking?’

  ‘He says they cut the cane and all the silk and the tackle, bent the reed double and twisted it like a worm.’

  ‘He says they attacked him even though he’d paid the committee money . . .’

  ‘Those bastards. They’re saying Valline was riotous.’

  John D’Oyle followed, facing the same charges. It seemed worse for him, because when Poor’s wife took the witness box, she claimed that D’Oyle was among seven others who entered her bedchamber, and he threatened her with a pistol and a sword.

  ‘A bitch of a whore, D’Oyle called her.’

  ‘Sounds fair enough to me.’

  There was a long hiatus.

  ‘What’s happening now?’ Henri whispered. He could barely breathe for the anxiety, which felt as though ropes were binding his chest.

  ‘It’s Lemaitre,’ the word came.

  ‘He’s my friend. Let me through,’ Henri shouted, barging his way to the front of the packed public gall
ery. No one stopped him. At last he was able to see down onto the courtroom, and he watched in horror as Guy was manhandled into a wooden pen, called the ‘dock’, by two heavy-set guards at either side. Although now dressed in decent garments his friend was barely recognisable: deathly pale and thin as a skeleton.

  The judge, wearing a long wig and heavy red cloak trimmed with fur, addressed Guy in a slow, sonorous tone: ‘Guy Lemaitre, you are charged that on December tenth you did, with force and arms, feloniously break by force into the house of Thomas Poor, with intent to cut and destroy a certain quantity of silk on a loom, and also with intent to cut and destroy a loom, with other tackle used in the weaving trade. Furthermore that in this house you did, with others, cut and destroy a hundred yards of bombazine, the property of Thomas Horton, and were with others who threatened the life of a woman with a pistol. How do you plead?’

  Guy gazed around the court with unfocused eyes. One of the guards shook his arm and the judge barked, ‘Mr Lemaitre, you are required to answer the question. How do you plead?’

  Guy’s reply was barely audible. ‘Not guilty, sir.’

  The weaver Mr Poor came back into the witness box and gave his statements, much as before. Henri’s heart lifted when he said, ‘Apart from D’Oyle and Valline, who I knew by their voices, it was so dark that night it was impossible for me or anybody else to distinguish any man.’

  ‘But you claim to know this man?’

  ‘I do, sir,’ Poor answered. ‘I do know his face well from the committee what forced us to give money to them. The Bold Defiance, they call themselves.’

  The son of Poor, a sickly-looking creature heavily marked with the pox, claimed to have seen Guy in the house that night. ‘I’d know the son of a bitch anywhere,’ he said. ‘He’d threatened us before, with the Book of Prices. That if we didn’t sign, it would be all the worse for us.’

  The defence seemed weak, with only two people coming forward to give evidence that Guy was of good character and had never been in trouble before. If only they had asked me, Henri thought. I’d have told them in more certain terms. But then he remembered the visit of the Guards that night: he was already a marked man, and his testimony might have been considered unreliable. Although the lawyers pressed the witnesses in cross-examination, it seemed none was prepared to testify to his claim that he had not actually been in the house of the weaver that night.

  Henri could not believe it was all over so quickly. As the guards turned to take Guy down, he began to panic. ‘Stop,’ he shouted. ‘He’s innocent. He was never there. Surely someone can tell this?’

  The judge looked up and fixed him with a stern gaze. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘If you interrupt again, I shall have you arrested for disrupting the course of justice.’

  Then he turned back to the courtroom, and called, ‘Next.’

  Henri observed the rest of the proceedings in a daze. The accused appeared either one at a time or in groups, to hear the charges and provide evidence for their innocence. It was clear the judge perceived D’Oyle and Valline to be the ringleaders, and that D’Oyle was the one carrying the gun. Guy was heavily implicated, with one or two others claiming that he had not only been there that night but had in fact been another of the ringleaders. The crowd that had been so excitable earlier now fell quiet, listening to every word spoken by the accusing, the accused and the witnesses both for and against.

  Late in the afternoon the judge announced that he would be taking a short break to consider the case before sentencing. Henri stayed put, not daring to risk losing his space in the public gallery. An hour ticked slowly by on the courtroom clock and when, at last, a clerk shouted, ‘All rise,’ Henri found his legs so weak that he struggled to stand.

  The judge entered and slowly climbed to his seat on the raised dais. He read out a list of four names and called for these prisoners to be brought up from the cells; Guy was not among them. These individuals were pronounced to be ‘not guilty on all counts’, and allowed to leave the court, accompanied by whoops and cheers from the crowd. Seven further prisoners were told they had been found guilty on some counts – most were sentenced to transportation.

  The only prisoners who had not yet reappeared were Valline, D’Oyle and Guy. ‘Those poor sods are going to cop it,’ Henri’s neighbour mumbled. ‘Mark my words. They always leave the worst till last.’ Anxiety churned in Henri’s belly so violently that he feared he might be sick.

  A ripple of anticipation stirred through the court as the three men emerged and took their place in the dock. Valline and D’Oyle stood strong and impassive-faced, appearing almost stoical about their fate, but Guy, pale and insubstantial as a wraith, sobbed freely and loudly. Henri felt his heart might break, seeing his friend so utterly terrified that he had lost all dignity.

  The judge peered over his glasses towards the dock, cleared his throat and began to speak.

  ‘John Valline, John D’Oyle and Guy Lemaitre,’ he said in a slow, portentous voice. ‘I find you guilty of all charges, including going armed with intent to murder.’

  The crowd erupted, and Henri found himself on his feet, shouting along with them. Days, even weeks, of pent-up anger and frustration, and the feeling of such helplessness in the face of an implacable and retributive system, seemed to explode.

  ‘You bastards!’ he shouted. ‘For shame!’ When he could bear to turn his eyes back towards the dock he saw that Guy had fainted clear away, his head lolling, his limp body being held upright by the guards. One of them began to slap him in the face, attempting to return him to consciousness so that he could hear his fate.

  A heavy hush fell over the room as the judge reached into his desk, pulled out a piece of black cloth and placed it on top of his wig. Henri fell to his knees with head in hands, painful sobs racking his chest. ‘Please God, save him,’ he whispered, over and over.

  ‘The disruption, damage to property and threat to persons has gone on too long,’ the judge was saying. ‘Ordinary working men and women must be allowed to continue their trades without fear of attack and extortion by lawless men, who cloak their violence under the mantle of natural justice.

  ‘I hereby sentence the three of you, John Valline, John D’Oyle and Guy Lemaitre, to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.’ A horrified groan reverberated through the court. ‘And so that it shall be a proper example to others in the vicinity who may consider it their right to resort to violence, the sentence will be executed in Bethnal Green, outside the public house which has been such a centre of foment among the lawless.’

  Henri could recall little of what happened next. He was trampled to the floor as the crowd surged for the exit door of the public gallery; heard the shouts and curses of the guards as they attempted to control the crowd, and the weeping of women in the corridors as he stumbled towards the doors with the acrid taste of nausea in his mouth.

  He tried to reach fresh air, but failed. There was a hand on his back, a handkerchief offered to wipe his mouth. ‘Come, we will go to pray for their souls,’ a kindly voice said – a voice he recognised from the French church.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath praying,’ he shouted, pulling away from the comforting hand, straightening his back and glaring wildly around the hallway of the courtroom. ‘How will that save his life?’

  More than anything, he wanted to see his friend, to tell him that it would be all right, that he’d get the sentence overturned. He ran along the street to the prison, but the huge wooden doors were closed and hammering on them elicited no response.

  ‘For the love of Christ, open up,’ he shouted. ‘Let me see him.’

  At last, a small window in the door eased ajar and a voice growled through the bars, ‘We’re closed. I’ll arrest you if you don’t leave off.’

  ‘I wish to see Guy Lemaitre.’

  ‘Bugger off, cabbage head.’

  ‘Let me in, I said!’

  ‘I will, in a minute. And then you’ll stay in.’ The window slammed.

  By now several hund
red men and women had gathered outside the courtroom, shouting, ‘Free The Dolphin three, free The Dolphin three.’ He joined the crowd and began to chant along with them, until he and they were one, melded into a more powerful whole by the strength of so many voices shouting in a single rhythm. For a few glorious moments it gave him hope: as if, by this force alone, they could change the course of fate.

  It could not last. Before long a dozen Guards appeared at the gate and fired their pistols into the air before reloading and lowering them towards the crowd. Barely knowing what he was doing, Henri moved forward, his eyes fixed on the black pinpoint hole of the nearest gun, and began to shout, ‘Kill me then, vas-y. Kill me. I am innocent too, like my friend.’

  The Guards fired again, into the crowd this time. The noise and shock was so great that Henri dropped to the ground, certain that he must have been hit. But he could feel no pain. The chanting stopped abruptly and, after a second’s horrified silence, everyone around him scattered. He heard the visceral howl of someone in agony, and found himself being pulled to his feet by a group of journeymen he knew slightly, faces from The Dolphin pub, and dragged along Newgate Street, past St Paul’s, along Bishopsgate towards Spitalfields. The mood of the streets was feverish, restive, with groups of angry young men brandishing torches and batons, or gathering on street corners in hastily whispered conversations.

  ‘Do not worry,’ his new companions told him. ‘We’re going to spring all three of them. We’ll cause such a riot the Guards won’t be able to hold them.’

  He found himself in several different alehouses, all of them in an uproar about the sentences, and he downed every pint that was placed in front of him, desperate to blunt the vision of Guy’s fearful face. There was much bragging and shouts of ‘Up the Defiance’, and he began slowly to understand that most of the men around him were the self-styled ‘Cutters’, friends of Valline and D’Oyle. A few also claimed to know Guy who, they promised, would not be allowed to die.