‘You dropped this,’ she said, handing Jeanne the sealed envelope.
‘Oh, thank you, Madam.’
‘I know how important they are,’ said the woman, who was forthright and rosy-cheeked, neatly dressed but not expensively so. She went on. ‘I had one myself. My husband’s a military man, too, you see.’
‘Oh, I . . .’
‘Cheered me up no end, so I do know how you’d feel if you’d gone and lost it . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah, have a look inside, and you’ll find out, Madam! Go on, open it!’
Jeanne paused a moment. The woman had a friendly face. She had run after her with the letter. She had received one like it. And it had made her happy.
At the woman’s insistence, Jeanne removed her gauntlet gloves, which she held under her armpits, then broke the seal. She found it hard to decipher the English handwriting at first. She then brought her cold fist to her mouth as her eyes glistened in the freezing air.
‘There, see, payment for officer’s wives!’ said the lady, underlining the words with her gloved forefinger.
Jeanne could hardly speak. She suppressed the impulse to cry, brushed her eyes, crushed her cold, red nose with her palm.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the young lady. ‘Thank you!’
‘Don’t thank me; thank your ole man, my love. You just have to take it to the payment desk, and then you’ll get what’s owing to you.’
TWENTY
Jeanne stood by the warp frame in the workshop.
She was wearing her thick woollen shawl over her shoulders to keep the cold and damp from her aching back, and was showing the seamstress how to set the warp. But though the girl was helpful and pretty, Jeanne found her not very bright and sometimes impertinent.
‘All right, Madame Jeanne! So it’s over and under and up to the top,’ said the seamstress, trailing her finger over the corresponding pegs.
‘Yes,’ said Jeanne, trying very hard to keep calm and patient. She had already explained this part ten times to her.
Jeanne had paid her rent in arrears and agreed to carry on weaving on Mrs Smythe’s loom in her frugally heated workshop for a raise of a penny, although she still had not received it. And now, with the run-up to Christmas, the orders had increased to such an extent that she was obliged to forfeit her own spinning and work the loom in the afternoons too. She had been working full days for weeks now, only able to get to church on Sundays. She felt like her world was shrinking, now reduced to her rooms and the workshop. She had received no more news from Jacob, and neither had she heard from her sister in France, now that the war prevented correspondence between the two nations.
‘Over and under in form of an eight, Nelly. It is not so difficult,’ said Jeanne in her heavy accent. But at least she was making sentences.
‘All right, Madame Jeanne,’ said Nelly, ‘keep your hair on. You don’t have to shout about it!’
‘I am not shouting. But you must open your eyes, Nelly. You make mistake, you start again!’
‘Well, I can’t help it if I’m no good with machines, can I?’
‘But do you want to be a weaver or no?’
‘I’d much rather marry one, if you don’t mind me saying! And my feet are blimmin’ freezing. Ain’t yours?’
Jeanne was losing her patience, and Nelly was losing her concentration again and becoming saucy.
Nelly did not appreciate being told what to do by someone who did not even speak properly. She might have been someone where she came from, but they didn’t want her, did they! ‘Anyway, I’ve got these dresses to do . . .’ said Nelly, who was fed up with the French lady’s moods. She was nice at first, but now she just kept talking to her as if she were a dimwit, which she was not, because dimwits don’t know what they want, do they? And she most certainly did, especially since she met the gentleman the other day, when Madame Jeanne had stomped off upstairs in another one of her fits as she often did.
He was a weaver in his mid-twenties, not very tall but good-looking with long, wavy hair, just like the dead soldier who used to live upstairs, and he had smiled at her.
Mrs Smythe had introduced him to the seamstress and shown him the loom where Jeanne normally sat.
‘I am purchasing a newer one. It should be assembled by next week,’ Mrs Smythe had told the young man slowly and deliberately. After repeating it, and using her hands to convey what she was getting at, he had returned an irresistible accented grunt of comprehension. ‘Ah, bien, monté . . . la semaine prochaine,’ he had said. He was French, too, and only spoke a little English, which, with hindsight, Mrs Smythe saw as an advantage. It meant that she would command any linguistic exchange.
This weaver was young, male, and attractive, and Nelly had got to dreaming of a possible romance, unless old Aunt Smythe got in before her. But she knew deep down it was only her sense of jealousy playing tricks on her. Besides, now past mothering years, Mrs Smythe had already been through three husbands. She was only concerned with her business.
Now that she had broken in one foreigner, Mrs Smythe was ready to take on another. In fact, it had become crucial that she do so, what with the French lady’s high-flown attitude, not to mention her lack of silk weaving expertise. And besides, a rebellious element could put her whole business at risk, especially now that orders were coming in fast and furious. She could not allow the momentum to slack. If she delayed the Christmas orders, she would be roasted. No one would ever trust her again.
So she had decided to invest in a new loom. While enquiring about prices and delays at the loom maker’s, she had bumped into this Monsieur Chausson, a weaver’s apprentice from Tours, no less. It did not take much to imagine what the mere mention of a weaver from Tours could do for her good name and business.
She had been planning on purchasing the loom after the end-of-year festivities, once her suppliers had paid her. But sometimes, you had to think on your feet and know to snap up an opportunity when the good Lord put one in front of you, because they did not come often. So Mrs Smythe had been down to the loom maker’s that morning and had left a down payment, which was not an easy thing for her to do, since parting with money was something Mrs Smythe hated more than anything.
‘Afternoon, ladies,’ she said on entering the workshop, which lacked the familiar rhythm of the loom, a music Mrs Smythe loved more than any other.
‘I thought you’d have finished setting by now. C’mon, get a wiggle on, ladies, let’s get beating!’ she said in a sing-song voice, punctuating her order with a clap of the hands. It was the refrain Jeanne detested most, loaded as it was with patronising superiority.
How she could have kicked herself for letting the woman get the better of her. She suppressed the impulse to stamp her foot and turn on her heels, for there were orders to honour. Instead, she smiled wryly and said in the politest voice she could muster: ‘It would be easier if we had not so cold, Madam. There needs more wood on the fire.’ But after only four months in the English capital, she had not mastered intonation as well as she would have liked. It came out like a demand.
Mrs Smythe had just handed over the first part of a small fortune to the loom maker. She was not in the mood for self-restraint. ‘Madame, no matter how much wood goes up in flames, if you are not active, then you will always feel the cold! And besides, too much heat makes one sleepy, and I cannot have you delaying further on the orders, or they will never get done, will they!’
‘I give you more hours than we agreed, Madam,’ said Jeanne. ‘I have kept my word, but you not. You said my pay would go up!’
‘I also said, Madame, that I would have to be paid myself before I can become extravagant with pay!’
‘Extravagant? You pay a lower rate than everyone!’
‘Huh! Weavers are ten to a penny nowadays, my dear. It would seem all the world would be a weaver!’ said Mrs Smythe, leaving the rest of her thoughts implied. But she knew she must not push it too far, for there were orders to be completed by Ch
ristmas Eve, which was in little more than a week. ‘Until then,’ she continued in a more temperate tone of voice, ‘I promised to keep the rent at the present rate, which works out the same as an increase in pay, does it not, Madame?’
‘No,’ said Jeanne, standing erect. ‘It removes my freedom of choice! And that, Madam, is why I am here! And you did not say you increase the rent!’
‘Offer and demand, Madame,’ said Mrs Smythe with a winning smile. ‘But look at it this way: if the demand went down, then so would the rent!’
Jeanne was fuming inside. Did this woman think she was dumb? She would not be condescended to, and all her pent-up anxiety and fury began to boil over, which brought out her accent even more when she said: ‘In zat case, I shall return to my veel, Madam!’
‘You shall do no such thing if you want to keep your job. You will resume your loom!’ said Mrs Smythe, emboldened by the knowledge that she no longer had to walk on eggshells, for Monsieur Chausson could easily step in for the moody French tart.
Jeanne had had enough of being talked down to by a lowly penny-pincher. She had had enough of this cold, damp place, of having to slip out and rush through her market purchases instead of enjoying the friendly banter of the vendors. She had had enough of having to refuse invitations from church acquaintances. She had fled her country in the name of religious tolerance. She was not going to forfeit her liberty to act in the very country that was fighting a war in defence of that tolerance, a country that had renounced Catholic domination, torture, and burnings at the stake for the freedom to choose.
‘Then do it yourself!’ she said.
‘Oh, I won’t need to!’ said Mrs Smythe as Jeanne stomped past her to the door, which she pulled hard behind her.
Mrs Smythe was momentarily tempted to run after her. But then she remembered she did not need to. She would find the young weaver that very morning. She would tell him he need not wait for the new loom, he could start tomorrow, and that the job came with a room.
TWENTY-ONE
Jeanne stood back and admired her son, dressed in his new suit.
She had dug out a blue velvet coat, waistcoat, breeches, blue stockings, and buckled shoes at the second-hand clothes market and had altered the garments to fit properly.
It was Christmas morning, and rare sunshine flooded the apartment, setting off the lively colours. She was pleased with her handiwork and her attempt at fitting him out in clothes she thought more in keeping with his lineage. She fastened his thick, black woollen travel cloak beneath his chin, kissed his forehead, and placed his tricorn hat on his little head.
Then she put on her own heavy cloak over her beautiful oxblood boned bodice and beige woollen skirts. Her white linen neckerchief protected her bosom from draughts, and she had attached white linen cuffs for the special occasion. Next, she pinned her wide-brimmed hat over her coif and pulled on her embroidered gauntlet gloves of soft beige lambskin.
‘How do I look?’ she said to Paul.
‘Like a countess,’ he returned approvingly. ‘Shall I go first to check that the coast is clear?’
Over the past week, he had served as her stairwell scout. And so far, they had not bumped into the landlady. Jeanne did not want to be asked to work in the workshop again. She had felt guilty at first about abandoning her post, but then was shocked at how quickly Mrs Smythe had replaced her, almost as if she had set her up to leave so the new weaver could make a start.
Jeanne did not want to stir up tensions, for, though she could hardly bear being under the same roof as Mrs Smythe, she knew she must wait until the cold snap was over to find new lodgings. In the meantime, she had kept mostly to her spinning wheel, venturing out to the market for provisions less frequently than before as, given the cold, she could conserve edibles in the larder for longer. Paul had been on hand to fetch up water and faggots for the wood burner.
‘No, we shall go down together,’ she said. She could not keep putting off an encounter. Anyway, the workshop would be closed.
As they descended the creaking stairway, they could hear the knocking of wood on the landing below. It could only be Mrs Smythe, sweeping before her door. Jeanne could hardly turn back, and besides, she would have to confront her at some stage.
‘Madam,’ said Jeanne as the landlady looked up from her sweeping. ‘Happy Christmas, Mrs Smythe.’
Mrs Smythe cracked a smile which contrasted with her frosty frown, and returned her lodger’s season’s greetings. She sniffed and feigned not to notice their high-class garb.
‘By the way, Madame Delpech,’ she said, standing prim and proper behind her broom. ‘I should inform you that the new weaver will be moving in shortly now that the previous lodger, the northerner, has moved on.’ She was talking about a discreet northern man who had rented the room above Jeanne’s while he was in London. Jeanne had only ever seen him once, busy as she was at the time in the workshop downstairs.
‘Thank you,’ said Jeanne, who longed for the day when she would announce her move to another abode.
‘So he’ll be settling in Monsieur de Sève’s old room. That poor friend of your husband’s who died. Have you any news, by the way?’
‘No, I have not.’
‘May the Lord help him in his plight,’ said Mrs Smythe, trying to be nice.
‘Thank you,’ said Jeanne, guardedly. Jeanne sensed the woman was leading up to something. It was clear she had deliberately formulated her chat to bring it round to Jacob so she could fish for news.
‘I should also let you know,’ continued Mrs Smythe, ‘I have purchased another loom, better for silk. The other one will be needing a weaver, though, should you be inclined . . .’
‘Thank you, Mrs Smythe, but I am sure you will find someone to work it for you,’ said Jeanne, desirous to curtail the conversation. By saying it out loud, she had at last made intellectual and psychological closure. She was relieved to imply that she would never work for the landlady again. She felt better, suddenly serene for it.
‘I am sure I will,’ said Mrs Smythe as Jeanne stepped across the landing. ‘Especially as the job comes with rooms!’
Jeanne gave Mrs Smythe good day while pushing Paul onwards to continue down the last flight of stairs.
It was a beautiful and frosty morning. Bells were ringing out across London as they directed their steps to the Huguenot church on Threadneedle Street. They had set out earlier than usual to make sure they would get a place in a pew, although Mrs Clement, the warden’s wife, did say she would save them places next to her and her husband.
Jeanne exchanged nods, bows, and Christmas greetings to acquaintances as they entered the church, already two-thirds full of finely yet soberly dressed Protestants. A far cry, thought Jeanne, from the gaudy fashions in France. Mrs Clement gave a sign, and Jeanne and Paul took their places.
The minister preached most excellently on Luke 3, she thought. But Jeanne soon let her attention drift and her thoughts ramble, and prayed for her husband’s safe return should that please Almighty God. Then she got to pondering over Mrs Smythe’s remark. She had said that the weaver job came with accommodation, but there were no other rooms available if the new weaver was taking the one recently made vacant. Jeanne concluded that it was a thinly veiled threat. Either she resumed her work at Mrs Smythe’s loom, or she would be thrown out on her ear. Whatever the legality of the situation, it meant Jeanne would have to act quickly. For she was adamant this time: she would never set foot in Smythe’s workshop again. It was bad enough knowing that the woman slept in the room beneath hers, let alone sharing the same air under her haughty stare.
After the service, she and Paul joined Mr and Mrs Clement along with Pastor Daniel and half a dozen other acquaintances for Christmas dinner at their house in neighbouring Soho. Jeanne was surprised to find a handsome neoclassic town house, three windows wide and three storeys tall. It was set back from the street and entered through an elegant white portico. Decidedly, Mr and Mrs Clement had done well to have fled France with their fo
rtune intact before the troubles in France had begun. Jeanne felt a pinch in her heart at realising she could well have done the same, and been in a similar situation now with her husband and children around her at this Christmastime.
A gentleman who Jeanne knew by sight but had never officially met was introduced to her as Monsieur Jacques Rulland. An English gentleman of French ancestry, his father had moved his English wife and their family to London from La Rochelle back in ’48 after Cardinal Mazarin, in an effort to curb Protestantism in the port city, founded the bishopric of La Rochelle. A mature and prosperous man in his early fifties, Monsieur Rulland possessed a weaving house and had been a widower since the previous year, when his wife succumbed to scarlet fever. He had the rigid allure of an Englishman, and spoke French with a slight English accent, pleasing to a French ear. It occurred to Jeanne that this was how Paul might sound and appear in years to come, the gentleman having left France at the same age as her son.
After the usual badinage, the topic of conversation at table inevitably turned to the Irish campaign, the fear of James Stuart’s return to the throne, and the determination of the new Dutch king and the English people to retain their freedom to practice the religion of their choice. It was common knowledge that Jeanne’s husband was fighting in Ireland, and she appreciated that they had not limited the conversation on her account. After the mention that there would be no more advancements made during the months of winter, in her calm and poised voice, Jeanne said: ‘I only hope and pray I get my husband back. Though I am proud he has embarked on the fight to stave off intolerance.’
‘And so you should be, dear Madame Delpech, and so should we all!’ said Mr Rulland quite spiritedly in his quaint English accent. ‘And so should his son, my word!’ he continued, placing a benevolent but frank eye on Paul, a cue for the boy to speak.
‘I am, Sir,’ said the lad forthrightly. ‘And I hope to follow in his footsteps.’ This took everyone by surprise, coming as it did from an eleven-year-old, and no one less so than his mother. There had been no soldiers in her family, and she secretly hoped there never would be. But not wanting to belittle him, she held her tongue.
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