The Hidden Thread

by Liz Trenow

  She laughed, her face relieved. “Of course you may. I should be delighted.”

  Their faces were turned to each other, eyes meeting, just inches apart. He could almost feel the pressure of those soft lips on his. With any other girl, he would have kissed her in a moment, even daring to reach a hand to her breast, but this time he felt curiously constrained.

  Instead, he took her hand. She did not resist and she did not take it away; it rested there, dry and light, with a heat that seemed to sear upward through his arm and into his whole body.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I am very flattered, sir,” she said with a smile that left him breathless. They stood, unmoving, for a few further blissful moments, the sun shining down on them through the window, the only sounds the indistinct murmuring voices of the clergy far away in the vestry, the cooing of pigeons outside, and the light clunk of Lizzie’s fingers on the organ keys above. “May I see the fabric when you have woven it?”

  “I like to invite you to Monsieur Lavalle’s house, so you see it on the loom,” he said. “But I think that may not be easy?”

  A shadow passed over her face. “I think perhaps you are right. I am sorry.”

  He knew it was the truth, and there was no more to be said, but the thought that he might never meet her again left him bereft. After a moment, she took her hand gently from his. He watched, wordlessly, as she prepared to take her leave, smoothing her skirt, straightening her shoulders, checking that her hat was still at the right angle.

  “I wish you all the best with your master piece.” Her smile was so sweet, and so regretful, that it seemed to suck the breath from his lungs. She called to her cousin: “Come, Lizzie. It is nearly lunchtime.”

  There was a clatter of feet on the wooden stairway and the spell was broken.

  11

  In conversing with professional gentlemen, never question them upon matters connected with their employment. An author may communicate, voluntarily, information interesting to you, upon the subject of his works, but any questions from you would be extremely rude.

  —The Lady’s Book of Manners

  The encounter with Henri Vendôme had lasted no longer than a quarter of an hour, but whenever she was alone, Anna found herself reliving every second of it in minutest detail.

  There was no doubting that it had left her unsettled. Here she was, trying to find her feet in an unfamiliar city, adapting to the expectations of society. He was a stranger from another social world, another country even, and she was well aware that by talking with him in that intimate way she had crossed the boundaries of acceptable behavior, risked the wrath of her aunt and uncle, and potentially put her reputation in jeopardy.

  Lizzie had made no secret of her disapproval. “Whatever were you thinking of, conversing all that time with the French boy, for all the world to see, as though he were one of us?” she had asked on their way home.

  “He’s a human being, Lizzie, just like you and me. He wanted permission to use my design for his weaving. I cannot see what is wrong with that,” she’d retorted a little too sharply. “Anyway, what would you like us to paint this afternoon?”

  “So long as that is all he wants,” Lizzie had replied.

  Anna barely cared. Those few moments in the church appeared gilded, glowing, a shimmering mirage. How easy she had found herself in his company, how plainly he had replied to her questions, struggling with the language, of course, but with such honesty.

  Talking to him was like a breath of fresh air after the stiff conversations of her aunt and uncle, who somehow never seemed able to say exactly how they felt, or what they wanted, without embroidering their sentences with extra phrases and convolutions. Nothing was ever said directly. But with Henri, the conversation had flowed in a perfectly simple and uncomplicated way, as though she had known him for years.

  She struggled to understand it: the tremor in her chest when she looked into his dark eyes, the way it had felt perfectly natural when he took her hand, like they were two halves meeting to make a whole. It had been thrilling and utterly irresistible.

  That night she lay in bed marveling at this extraordinary turn of events. Could it be true that Henri thought her hastily drawn sketch good enough to recreate in silk? She felt flattered, and proud, that he showed such confidence in her design, but at the same time it was alarming that she might hold some kind of responsibility for his future career. It would be the most important piece of weaving of his life, on which his acceptance as a silk master depended.

  If only she knew more about weaving techniques, could understand what would translate into an elegant design or even what would be considered fashionable. She’d been given a glimpse, as if through a chink in a door, into a wonderful new world of art and ideas, but the extent of her ignorance was like a lock preventing her from ever entering that doorway.

  She tossed and turned as the thoughts tumbled around in her head. And then she remembered, with a realization so powerful that she found herself sitting upright in bed, her eyes wide open. On her first day in this house, Uncle Joseph had shown her the dozens of leather-bound sample books stacked on shelves in the company’s showroom. Each ledger contained dozens of drawings and designs on squared paper and clips of the finished silk, which were pasted or pinned onto the pages. There must be hundreds of silk designs right here in this house, just three floors below her. What a tantalizing thought. If only she could study them to find out more about what makes a good design for weaving into silk.

  She entertained the idea of asking Uncle Joseph or William to help her but dismissed it almost at once. Uncle Joseph would tell her not to “worry yourself about such matters” or, worse, might question why she was so curious about silk designs. William was so grumpy and miserable he would probably tell her to mind her own business.

  But what was stopping her from going to look at the sample books herself? Now? Everyone was asleep. The house was deathly quiet and pitch-black. She told herself not to be so impetuous, to wait until the morning and perhaps discuss it with Aunt Sarah. But the notion, once it took hold, would not let go.

  She lit a candle, wrapped a shawl closely around her shoulders, and descended the stairs, carefully choosing the treads that she could trust not to creak. The most dangerous part was the upper landing, from which the other bedrooms led, but she managed to negotiate it without a sound. In her mind’s eye, she could see the ledgers on the shelf. They were almost within her grasp.

  When she finally reached the ground floor, the door to the office was closed and she feared it might be locked. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, turned the handle, and eased it open.

  At first, she did not register that the glow in the room emanated from another candle besides her own. A second later, she sensed the presence of someone concealed behind its glow on the other side of the table. Before her legs had understood the need to take flight, the person looked up: it was cousin William, his face the color of tallow, pinched into a grimace of alarm and immobilized in her gaze. She struggled to take in what her eyes were telling her: on the table in front of him was a money box, and in his open hand several gold coins.

  In that same moment, he seemed to recover the power of movement. He picked up the money box and shoved it into a drawer underneath the table and then, slick as lightning, slipped the coins into the pocket of his robe where they fell against each other with a sharp clink. But also, in that fraction of a second, Anna comprehended what she had seen: William was stealing money. Even the flickering candlelight could not conceal the expression on his face: it was a look of naked guilt.

  “Anna? What in God’s name are you doing down here at this time of night?”

  Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she managed to answer calmly. “I might ask the same of you, William.”

  “It is none of your business. You’re not allowed in here anyway.” He turned away, as if to b
usy himself with some papers on the nearby desk. “I suggest you take yourself back to bed and I’ll say nothing more of it.”

  She might have done so but for the anger. How dare he be so insolent, so unpleasant, when it was he who had been caught red-handed?

  “Is it not my business to report that I have seen you taking coins from the money box?” she asked, astonished by her own audacity.

  William turned back and stepped around the table toward her with clenched fists raised, his face puce with fury.

  “Is that your answer?” she heard herself saying. Every muscle was straining to run, but she stood her ground. “To beat me?”

  For a moment he seemed to freeze on the spot, with fists still held high, but then his arms fell to his sides, his face contorted in confusion and—she now saw—a look of utter wretchedness. He slumped into a chair, rested his head in his hands, and gave a loud groan. “Oh Christ,” he muttered. “Why don’t you tell the whole world? I’m finished anyway, so what difference does it make?” To her further alarm, she saw that his hunched shoulders were shaking.

  This was a dizzying turn of events—William, the sophisticate, the tough man, breaking down in front of her? It would have been so easy to run away, but what gain would there be from that? Her original intention had slipped to the back of her mind. Now, she was really curious to know what was causing William such intense distress and why it had led him to help himself from the money box in the dead of night. She drew up a chair and waited until the sobs subsided.

  William looked up, his eyes red and raw-looking. “For Christ’s sake, why are you still here? I told you to go back to bed,” he said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his night robe.

  “I am concerned for you, Cousin,” she said.

  “It is nothing to trouble your little head with.”

  She ignored the slight. “But it is, you see. I have seen it in your face these past few weeks. And it’s brought you to theft, too, if I’m not mistaken. So, as a member of the family, I think it is of quite some concern to me.”

  He sat, red-eyed and stony-faced, trying to stare her out.

  “Unless,” she added quietly, “you want me to ask Uncle Joseph?”

  His fingers wrestled in his lap. “How do I know you won’t sneak on me anyway?”

  “I give you my word, William. And I will do what I can to help you,” she said. “Even if you don’t seem to like me very much.”

  He sighed deeply, causing the candle to gutter. “I owe money,” he began. “And if I don’t pay it back, they’re going to issue a writ to take me to court. I could end up in debtors’ prison.”

  “How much money?”

  “Nearly two hundred pounds.”

  Anna’s head was spinning. Two hundred pounds! A small fortune. “How…?” she began.

  “Gambling,” he said. “I’m such an idiot. It was Charlie got me started, and one thing led to another. Just thought if I could only get a lucky break, I could clear the debts and never do it again. But it doesn’t work like that and now some very powerful people are determined to bring me down, unless I pay up by the end of the week. Honestly, I don’t know what else to do.”

  She thought for a few moments, weighing up the possibilities. “Wouldn’t it be better to own up to your father, and ask him to lend you the money? You can pay him back a certain amount each week.”

  “Haven’t you learned anything about my father?” William scoffed. “If he knew I’d been gambling, he’d throw me out on my ear.”

  “He’s not without his own shortcomings,” she said. “What about that illegally imported French silk?”

  His eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”

  “Never mind. I just know.”

  There was another long silence before he started again, in a low voice. “The thing is, it was me who ordered that silk. It was another wheeze to try to pay off my debts and Father was never supposed to know, but it got discovered and went horribly wrong. He’s been covering for me ever since, trying to get me off the hook.”

  It was Anna’s turn to be speechless. William had risked the reputation of his father, the business, and the whole family just to feed his gambling habit? Now she understood perfectly why he had looked so queasy for the past few days. It was a truly dreadful state of affairs.

  “Haven’t you any friends who can lend you money?” She still disliked the man and would never condone his actions, but could not help feeling sorry for the miserable plight he’d got himself into. “Can you not pay the debt back slowly, a few pounds each week?”

  He gave a harsh, scornful guffaw.

  “What is the worst that could happen if you don’t pay up?”

  “They will beat me, perhaps to death. At least that’s what they’ve threatened.”

  “Surely Uncle would notice if the cash has disappeared?”

  “I can cover it with accounting adjustments until I can pay it back.”

  “Not by gambling? Tell me you won’t take that risk again?”

  “I may be an idiot but I’ve learned my lesson now, of that you can have my assurance,” he said, looking her straight in the eye for the first time. “No, I will pay back a small sum each week, and no one need ever know.”

  She did not want to know what “accounting adjustments” meant and neither did she want to appear to be excusing his dishonesty, but she was coming to understand that, apart from telling Uncle Joseph, this might be the only way for William to avoid a fatal beating. She gave an involuntary shiver.

  “You will not mention this to anyone, Anna? Can I trust you?”

  “I will say no more of this meeting, on two conditions. First, that you do not mention my own appearance here tonight and, second, that you agree to help me with the mission on which I came in the first place.”

  “And what might that be?”

  In the most confident voice she could muster, she replied, “I want to learn about how a silk design is translated into woven fabric and what makes a good design.”

  “May I ask why you wish to know these things?”

  “I cannot tell you why,” she said, “except that I am an amateur artist, and now that I am living in a world full of silk, the subject has piqued my interest.”

  The color had returned to his face, and she saw that his expression was, for once, neither a smirk nor a sneer. It was a smile, an honest smile, a smile of respect. “You want to look at these designs tonight?”

  “Why not? I am wide awake, and we have the place to ourselves.”

  “I will do my best,” he said.

  He moved quickly now, lighting three more candles and retrieving several ledgers from the showroom. For the next hour he was as good as his word, explaining all that he knew about silk design. He showed her how each double-page spread held a copy of the original design, the colored point paper, and a sample of the finished fabric, along with written instructions about the color, yarn, and weave.

  “First of all, the original design is translated onto these tiny squares and each one is colored to represent the pattern that would be created by every movement of the warp threads, the ones that go lengthways,” he said. He described how the type of cloth would determine the number and proportion of warp and weft threads—“for example, a satin has more warp threads than a tabby”—and how each color requires a different shuttle. “So, the more colors you have, the more complicated the weave and thus the more expensive the finished fabric,” he explained.

  Patterns could never be wider than a single comber—the width of the loom—of between nineteen and twenty-one inches. “And it must repeat well in width and length,” he added, “to make it easier to weave without pucker or distorting the design.”

  She sighed. “There’s so much to remember. It would take a lifetime to learn it all.”

  “Many of the best designers are also weavers,” he said.
“But there are books about the topic. I will see if I can find one for you.”

  He went on to talk about the design itself: how it was important never to have too many picks—“that’s a single pass of the shuttle”—of one color or it would result in a section of “floating” weave, which would be vulnerable to pulls and render the fabric “unstable.” He also showed her how it was difficult to weave curves, especially shallow curves, “when essentially you only have threads that go up and down or across,” and how shading could require especial skills, particularly in the horizontal plane. “It is simpler to shade with weft threads than with the warp,” he explained, although she struggled to understand exactly what he meant.

  The more he talked, the more Anna became convinced that her own sketch would be impossible to weave. All those curves, all that shading, all those colors, she thought to herself. Does Henri know what he is taking on, or will he have to simplify it to fit the difficulties of translating it into weave?

  William closed the ledger, stretching his back. “Will that do for tonight?”

  “Thank you, William,” she said.

  “You will not tell, Anna, about…you know?”

  “Your secret is safe with me, Cousin. But please take care. Stay out of trouble.”

  “You have my word,” he said.

  • • •

  The following morning, Anna was in the drawing room with Aunt Sarah, trying to read but struggling to keep her eyes open, when Betty arrived with the post.

  The pretensions of the family never failed to amuse her—apart from the daily cook, Betty was their only servant, and thus expected to comport herself as butler, footman, lady’s maid, and underservant, all in one day. Nonetheless, she appeared to manage it all with admirably good humor.