The Hidden Thread

by Liz Trenow

  He was sent to the church school, where he quickly learned to speak and write English, also showing a special aptitude for arithmetic and a great curiosity for the natural world. Even at that young age, all who met him were charmed by the boy. He, in turn, came to learn that by being willing and good-natured, by offering his sweet smile, he could make the world go his way. When he turned twelve, M. Lavalle offered him employment as a drawboy in his own weaving loft.

  From dawn until dusk, Henri would sit under a loom and, on the command of the weaver, pull the correct lashes that were laced to the simple. These, in turn, produced the figured design of the cloth and, even in those early years, he was full of questions, wanting to know how the design was translated from the painted original, how the figure harness worked, or why this or that denier of silk was always used. It was this evident interest, his application to work, and a maturity beyond his years that encouraged M. Lavalle to take on Henri as an apprentice without demanding the usual premium.

  This act of generosity had been well rewarded: in the main the lad had obeyed the rules of the indenture, the requirement to be “modest, civil, clean, and above all obedient to his master,” and, over time, M. Lavalle had entrusted him with increasingly complex work, which he could now weave with great accuracy.

  At nineteen, when Henri completed his indentures, he’d gratefully accepted M. Lavalle’s offer of full-time work as a daily-rate journeyman, and accommodation. When he was ready, Henri would present his “master piece” to demonstrate that he had gained all the skills necessary to be admitted to the Worshipful Company of Weavers as a master weaver, and he would then be able to set up on his own in business and employ other apprentices and journeymen. But as a widower with no sons of his own, the fancy had been growing in M. Lavalle’s mind of late that Henri might, one day, inherit his business.

  M. Lavalle’s only surviving child, Mariette, had always viewed Henri as the older brother she’d never had. But lately, at nearly fifteen, her responses had subtly changed. She had, more than once, commented on Henri’s good looks, his striking Breton coloring, the thick, black hair that had grown so long that he was obliged to tie it back as he worked, and the intense, questioning chestnut-brown eyes that seemed never to miss a thing.

  When once she always had a snippy retort to Henri’s banter, it now seemed to reduce her to a fit of girlish giggles. If he paid a simple compliment, such as appreciation of the food she placed on the table in front of him, her cheeks would flood with pink.

  M. Lavalle watched these changes, feeling out of depth in this new phase of his child’s life and wishing for the thousandth time that his wife were still alive to deal with it. In a few years’ time, the pair would make an ideal match. Once Henri had achieved his mastership, he would be in a position to start the process of handing over the business and slipping into gentle retirement, reading his books and warming his feet by the fire. He could not think of a better outcome.

  • • •

  Henri climbed the two flights of stairs to the top landing, and then up the ladder, pushing open the trapdoor into the weaving loft. Every inch of this room was familiar to him, every smell and sound, the way the light fell through the windows onto the looms in different seasons and weathers. Eleven years of his life had been spent in this large, airy space that stretched the width of the house, with its rough-hewn wooden floors, dormer windows across the front, and two skylights angled into the roof at the rear. Three sturdy wooden looms, two spinning wheels, and a rack holding wound warp beams occupied the floor area almost entirely, leaving only narrow walkways between.

  The walls to each side were covered from floor to ceiling with boxes of bobbins, shuttles, and pirns, all carefully labeled by color, twist, and denier. Empty warps were suspended from the ceiling, ready to be sent out to the winders. These beams, too awkward to maneuver down narrow stairways, would be eased through the wide casement window and lowered to the street below on ropes from a gantry. The reverse operation was used for returning the wound warps ready for mounting on a loom.

  The windows were thrown wide open this sultry July afternoon—being at the top of the house, hard beneath the tiles, the loft was always too hot in summer or too cold in winter. Under the looms were straw pads on which the drawboy and apprentice slept. At the end of his indentures, Henri had graduated to the privilege of a truckle bed in a small box room in the basement of the house, next to the kitchen, where it was never too cold nor too warm and was close to supplies of bread and cheese which, if taken in moderation, could evade the cook’s suspicions.

  “Merde, it’s hot up here today,” Henri said, closing the trapdoor with a gentle thud.

  The drawboy, who normally worked the lashes and simples, had taken Henri’s absence as an opportunity and was asleep on his pallet. Benjamin, the apprentice for whom he had responsibility for tuition, sat dully slumped at his loom, upon which he was supposed to be weaving a basic gray taffeta lining for gentlemen’s waistcoats.

  “How’s that tabby going?” Henri said, peering over to see for himself. “Whatever have you been up to? I’ve been gone an hour and you’ve barely woven an inch.”

  “Broken warp thread,” the boy muttered. “Took an age to find. They’re the devil to see in this color.”

  Henri examined the woven fabric more closely. “Make sure you pull that heddle firmly after each pass of the shuttle, to press the weft taut against itself. No skimping or the fabric will turn out uneven and it shows badly on a plain silk like this. Take care M. Lavalle has no excuse to dock your dinner again.”

  The boy was lazy and already half-starved for being rude to his master; he was the spoiled only son of an English mariner and spoke longingly of going to sea, but his father had decided that the silk business would be more profitable and less dangerous. Henri doubted he would see out the full seven-year indenture, but it was a feather in his own cap that M. Lavalle had entrusted him with the boy’s training and he was determined to persevere while the boy remained.

  He nudged the drawboy awake with his toe. “Lashes time, gamin.” The boy groaned and rubbed his eyes, then stirred himself into his position beside the loom.

  • • •

  For the next few hours the three boys worked hard, each concentrating on their tasks, the only sound the clack of the shuttles, the rattle of the treadles manipulated by Henri’s feet, as if he were an organist, and his terse instructions to the drawboy about which of the dozen numbered simples of the figure harness to pull: “cinq, cinq, un, sept, dix, dix.”

  They all knew that, as the sun lowered behind the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street, the light would quickly fade and weaving would have to stop. On rare occasions when a deadline was immutable, they could weave by candlelight, but the going would be slow and the quality jeopardized. Fine silk threads, only visible because of their luster, would become almost impossible to see by the flickering light of a candle. More than once, Henri had been forced to reweave a piece because of the faults he had discovered the following day, and M. Lavalle would fly into a rage at the waste of precious silk.

  Later that evening, after a supper of boiled eggs, apple pie, and ale followed by a short game of backgammon with M. Lavalle and Benjamin, Henri retired to his basement room. The cook was still clattering about the kitchen next door, clearing up, laying the fire, and preparing vegetables for the following day, but the noise of domesticity never troubled him. He found it comforting; a reminder of how, as a boy in France, he would listen to his parents talking and moving about in the house below his bedroom, long before their troubles began.

  Henri closed his eyes and wondered how his mother was faring this sultry night. A year ago the widow had been courted by one of her customers, a weaver from Bethnal Green, whose wife had died, leaving him with five small children to raise. But he was pockmarked and ill-tempered and she’d been wary of his attentions. Even though grief still cast a long shadow
over her heart, she had found her place in society, taking on voluntary work at the French church and making a good living as a throwster, while no longer being responsible for Henri’s upkeep. Now in her late forties, she had grown to relish her independence and had no intention of taking on responsibility for a new family. So, when the widower proposed, she had refused him.

  Unfortunately, he took her refusal as a personal slight and she had received no work from him ever since. And he seemed to have told his friends, too, because commissions from other regular customers had also dried up from that moment. She was a proud woman and rarely complained, but Henri could hardly fail to notice that she had been forced to give up the second room of her lodgings, which meant that she had to work, eat, and sleep in a single cramped and airless space. There was little food in her cupboard, and he would slip her a loaf of bread or a couple of eggs whenever he could.

  He’d mentioned it to M. Lavalle, who had tried to send as much work as he could in her direction. What Henri now wanted most in the world was to gain his mastership and then raise enough money to rent his own house and his own looms, to provide his mother with the comfort and security she so desperately deserved.

  Of late he had spent the moments before sleep imagining himself in the aromatic embrace of the sugared-almond seller, but this time, when sleep finally came, it was of the English girl that he dreamed, the girl with the bold gaze and blue-green eyes, the girl who spoke like a lady but dressed as a maid. She took his hand and led him into a room hung on all sides with the most beautiful silks he had ever seen, sumptuous satin grounds figured with intricate, elegant, and delicate floral designs in intense, lustrous colors, the kind that took months to weave just a few yards of, that cost hundreds of pounds and was commissioned only for dukes and duchesses, bishops and royalty.

  He woke in the dark, knowing that the dream was his future: to achieve his Freedom and be accepted into the Weavers’ Company, he would have to create, design, and then weave without fault such a fabric as one of these, as his master piece.

  4

  Do not be too submissive to the dictates of fashion; at the same time avoid oddity or eccentricity in your dress. There are some persons who will follow, in defiance of taste and judgment, the fashion to its most extreme point; this is a sure mark of vulgarity.

  —The Lady’s Book of Manners

  Anna had been dreading the day when her gowns would be ready, when she would have to forgo her comfortable linen skirts and jackets, the cambric petticoat worn soft with washing, and the boned stays grown flexible with age.

  Worse than that, the thought of having to ask the family’s maid to help her dress twice a day, once in the morning for her daytime outfit and then, before supper, into an evening gown, troubled her deeply. Betty was sweet and willing—in some ways Anna felt more of an affinity with her than she did with the rest of the family—but it was the prospect of being so entirely dependent on someone else that she could not bear.

  At the vicarage they’d had just a day cook and a maid, with no live-in help—her father cherished evenings when they could enjoy the peace and privacy of a family home. Her aunt’s relationship with the servants seemed inconsistent, veering between being domineering and overfamiliar, and it was difficult to know how she should treat them. Either way, she did not relish the thought of having to share her most intimate times, of dressing and undressing, with another.

  Homesickness weighed like a boulder in her chest; a constant, almost physical pain that could only be relieved, temporarily, by reading or conversation. Other distractions seemed precious few. The life of a London lady in polite society was, as far as she could tell, devoid of purpose, endeavor, excitement, or intellectual stimulus. She had no friends to talk to apart from Lizzie, who seemed solely interested in gossip, clothes, and other frivolous matters. If she tried to engage the girl in discussion about novels or the latest news in The Times, Lizzie would chide her: “Why so serious, Anna? Cheer up! You’ve always got your nose in a book, and who cares about silly wars or politics or what the Scots are up to now?”

  Occasionally there were guests at supper, when subjects might be discussed such as the shocking excesses of the gin-drinking poor or the shameful greed and violent tendencies of journeymen weavers. Once or twice she had tentatively ventured to contribute to the conversation or ask a simple question: “What are the weavers demonstrating for?” or “How can poor people afford gin and not bread?”

  Each time, Uncle Joseph had been dismissive: “Why would a girl want to trouble her head with the nastier aspects of our world?” he’d say. “You must engage your mind with more pleasant matters, Niece. Fashion, music, art. These are more suitable topics.”

  After leaving the table with the other ladies to play whist or gossip about the latest French hat styles, she could hear the men’s discussions raging next door and longed to be there with them instead, eager to learn how city life, trade, and politics worked. But, for now, she stopped asking questions and contented herself with close reading of the newspapers her uncle brought into the house each day.

  She read reports of a slump in the silk business partly caused by the illegal smuggling of cheaper French imports and how thousands of weavers were out of work and even starving. Bread riots, such as the one they had encountered, were apparently becoming commonplace. Some silk masters, it was claimed, hired untrained people, sometimes women and children, to avoid paying the rates demanded by journeymen.

  There were stories of stonings, sabotage, and even what the paper called a “skimmington”: when a weaver accused of working below the agreed rates was tied to a donkey backward and driven through the streets accompanied by the “rough music” of jeering journeymen hammering pots and pans. It sounded violent and horrible and, much as she felt sorry for those who had not enough money to live on, she fervently hoped that such problems would not affect her uncle’s business.

  • • •

  The ache of homesickness was worst at night, when the house was locked and barred and the rest of the household asleep, but the alien sounds of the city filtered through the ill-fitting windows of her garret bedroom. Dogs howling, drunken louts brawling, and the catcalls of what William referred to as “women of the night” kept her wide awake, intruding even into her sleep.

  She hoped against hope that she would, in time, become used to this strange new world, but for now she lay sleepless for hours, and her thoughts inevitably turned to Suffolk. She missed her mother, of course, like a hole in her soul. She could still summon that dear face, the wispy hair, the vague, slightly distracted look, the gentle, calming voice. From her mother she had learned how to draw and paint, how to appreciate all living things, how to recognize wildflowers and cultivate a kitchen garden, how to sew and bake. All these skills she was determined to cherish, holding them close to her heart as the precious legacy of her mother’s love.

  She missed the countryside: the sea with its violent turns of mood and ever-changing shoreline; the constant, comforting shurrush of reeds rustling in the marshes and the shallow, brackish lakes loud with the calls of wading birds; the heathland with its changing colors—the fizzing yellow of spring broom, the delicate dog rose in pale pink and white, the fiercer pink of summer willow herb, and finally the brilliant-purple heather, spread across the sandy land like a blanket.

  She missed the companionship of the village, too: the comings and goings at the vicarage; her friends from church; her sister; their dog, Bumbles; her art lessons with Miss Daniels; and, most of all, her father.

  As she had grown toward adulthood, Theodore had come to confide in his elder daughter, grumbling about the demands of the more eccentric and wayward members of his congregation and bemoaning the impossible requests sent down on high from his diocesan masters. He invited her to sit at his side during meetings with the accountant about the family’s finances, with his lawyer discussing legal issues relating to the church, and sometimes at pari
sh council meetings if there was a particularly thorny issue to be debated.

  “You are the only one I can trust, dearest, and I need you to be my eyes and ears, so that you can guide me as to whether I am making the right decisions,” he said more than once.

  So she had watched and listened, learning how a negotiation could be successfully achieved without an opponent even realizing that they had acceded, how to bring a conversation back from the diversion of a personal hobby horse without the speaker feeling they had been ignored, and how to understand the elements of simple accounting and the basic tenets of legal judgment.

  In his darkest moments, Theodore would admit that his faith had been tested by her mother’s persistent illness and would debate with her the morality of continuing to preach when assailed by such doubts. In better times, they talked late into the night of literature, of politics both local and national, of philosophical ideas, of the exciting new understandings of science and nature being discovered. Although not artistic himself—she had inherited that talent from her mother—he gladly supported her desire to learn, paying for her lessons with an old lady in the village who had become something of a local celebrity for her book of floral illustrations.

  Anna missed her privacy. A vicarage is a public place with plenty of comings and goings but, despite this, there were always quiet corners where each member of the family could enjoy their own company. Here, in the more confined quarters of the Spital Square house, the only place she could be alone was in her bedroom. But if she spent too much time there and was discovered by Lizzie or her aunt, she would face questioning. Why had she retired to bed? Was she feeling unwell?