by Liz Trenow
‘I’d only end up bidding against myself. It was your idea. You do it.’
‘I have but two pounds,’ she said. ‘Please, just have a go.’
By now there were five people left in the room: myself and Anna, the auctioneer and two scruffy characters who looked like pedlars.
‘Two-six-one. Short pieces of brocade and damask,’ the auctioneer announced. ‘Who’ll give me a guinea?’ Surely everyone could hear my heart thudding? ‘Ten shillings then?’ he barked irritably, as though we were wasting his time. I pinched my lips.
‘Five?’ One of the traders raised his hand, the other followed swiftly afterwards. The two vied for bids, raising a shilling a time.
‘Ten shillings,’ he said. ‘Ten shillings. Going, going . . .’
Anna nudged me. ‘Eleven,’ I squeaked.
The traders glowered and bid again until it reached fifteen shillings. ‘And sixpence,’ I heard myself saying. My head was in such a spin that when the hammer went down I could not be entirely sure whether it had fallen in my favour.
‘Fifteen shillings and sixpence to the lady. Name, please?’
Anna’s cheeks were flushed with triumph now. ‘Bravo, Charlotte,’ she whispered.
‘He wants your name, Anna.’
‘My name?’
‘For the sale. So he can record what you owe.’
It was only a bunch of silk pieces too short to be of much use, bought for a few shillings, but it felt as though we had won a great prize. Little did I know then that, far from being a prize, this little bundle was like Pandora’s box. Much anguish would result from the opening of it.
2
Open robe: a gown whose skirt encircles the back and sides but is open at the front, allowing the petticoat to be seen.
The Vendome house feels like home. It is not overly large or grand; like most houses in this part of London it doubles, as does my own, as a business premises, lively with the comings and goings of customers and suppliers as well as the family who live there. Besides Anna and Henri there is his master Monsieur Lavalle, now mostly retired, and his pretty daughter Mariette, who seems about to become engaged to her silversmith sweetheart any day now. A drawboy sleeps in the weaving loft and the apprentice in the basement beside the kitchen.
We are usually greeted by the thud of small feet and the cry of ‘Maman’, but little Jean is only two years old and needs his afternoon rest. I assumed that was where he must be, with his grandmother watching over him. Everyone had quietly hoped that Henri’s mother Clothilde and Monsieur Lavalle might make a union to comfort each other in their declining years, but it was not to be. Although they are the best of friends she remains living in rented rooms nearby, coming each day so that Anna can work. A cook feeds this crowd with endless patience and good humour. She certainly needs it – the numbers at table, and their times of arrival, are always unpredictable.
The house was quiet that afternoon, save for the comforting thud of looms in the weaving loft above. Monsieur Lavalle no longer weaves, complaining that the ladder is too steep for his creaky joints, but Henri will work up there for at least half of each day, instructing the apprentice and the drawboy. It is the sound of industry, and I love to hear it. My own business is largely silent save for the snip-snip of scissors and the low conversation of the seamstresses.
Just as at my own shop, two rooms on the ground floor are dedicated to business, with a showroom at the front and an office at the rear filled from floor to ceiling with samples, workbooks, ledgers for accounts and customer details, with barely a space to squeeze between the desks. Anna works there when she can to keep abreast of business affairs but complains about the disorder and poor light, often resorting to carrying her pencils, paints and point papers up to the front room on the first floor that serves as a parlour for the family.
Here, the sun floods through tall windows and seconds are counted out in the measured tick-tock of the tall grandfather clock in the corner, Monsieur Lavalle’s pride and joy. On chillier days like this one there is always a cheerful blaze in the fireplace and plentiful tallows burning in the sconces, their light reflected in the looking glass above the fireplace and glinting off the dark wood panelling. An old harpsichord sits in the corner; a decorative piece much neglected by Mariette, despite her father’s exhortations. Anna claims her neglect is a blessing, for the girl has no aptitude nor any ambition to improve, and her clumsy attempts are tiresome on the ear.
By the fireside is the master’s old chair, high-backed against the draught, its red leather faded and worn. No one else sits there, certainly not when Monsieur Lavalle is at home. He is the kindest man and I have never heard an angry word from him, but he likes his routine and can be stern with those who cross him.
A glass-fronted case on the far wall holds dozens of porcelain ornaments, elaborate scenes of shepherds and milkmaids and the like, which it was the pleasure of the late Madame Lavalle to collect. In a private moment I once watched Monsieur Lavalle unlock the doors to take out a precious item, whispering to it as he dusted it off, as though communing with his beloved wife. Even though he will never admit to any sadness, it is obvious that his heart is still in mourning.
It was to this room that, in our exultant mood, we brought our auction spoils.
‘Come,’ Anna said, clearing books and papers from the table by the window. She untied the ribbon and laid out the pieces of fabric – twelve in all – and immediately began to examine more closely those she believed to be by the masters she so revered: Leman, Baudouin or Dandridge. These men – many of them refugees to London from persecution in their own countries – are long dead now, but we who work in the business owe a debt of gratitude for their sophisticated designs and ground-breaking techniques. It is at least partly due to them that Spitalfields silks are now renowned throughout the world.
I busied myself inspecting the other swatches, lifting and unfolding each in turn to see whether they could be of any use. A design of oak leaves and brown acorns against a light blue ground caught my eye.
‘That’s pretty,’ Anna said, glancing over. ‘Would you have a use for it?’
‘It’d make an interesting lining for a gentleman’s jacket,’ I said. ‘For pockets, cuffs and facings. Let me give you some money for it.’
‘Don’t be silly. These are the only ones I wanted for myself. The rest are yours if you would like any of them.’
I placed the oak leaf design to one side and continued my investigation. None of the other fabrics were of any interest, until it came to the last. Just as soon as I unfolded it the back of my neck seemed to prickle, and I felt a sharp pain in the palm of my hand.
The silk, brocaded in the most brilliant reds, purples and greens on a pale ground, showed a small oriental building like the follies so beloved of the aristocracy, settled among oversized lotus flowers and a gnarled, twisted tree from which an exotic bird, quite unlike any in this country, seemed to sing. I had seen similar silks before: Chinoiserie designs, inspired by porcelain imported from the Far East, were all the rage a few decades ago. But this was different. Interwoven through the brocade were the finest threads of silver.
‘What is it, Charlotte? You have turned so pale. You poor dear, in my excitement over the Leman silks I have neglected you. Let me call for tea and something sweet.’
‘It’s this silk.’ My hands shook as I passed it to her. Something caught in the back of my throat. It was the scent of dried lavender, such as we use to deter moths.
‘It is unusual, I grant you, I have never seen anything like it before,’ she said, after a moment. ‘A bit gaudy, don’t you think? Not in the most subtle of tastes. It must have been designed for someone who needed to impress.’ She scraped the tarnished metallic thread with a fingernail and took out her glass for closer inspection. ‘It is real silver, all right; must have cost a pretty penny or two. The customer will have been well-heeled, that is certain.’
As she held the fabric up to the window it seemed to shimmer and shif
t, as though it was alive. Bright dots of sunshine reflected off the silver threads and began to spin around the room with increasing speed; a dazzling, dizzying whirlpool of light that burned my eyes and roared in my ears.
‘Oh! Charlotte.’ I felt Anna’s steadying hand on my arm. She pulled up a chair. ‘Here, sit down. Take deep breaths,’ she ordered. ‘Don’t try to talk.’
After a cup of tea and two of cook’s delicious almond biscuits, I began to recover. The silk still lay on the table by the window and although a few reflections still peppered the walls, at least they were not moving. The roaring in my head had abated, the pain in my palm had disappeared.
‘What came over you?’ Anna asked.
‘Truly, I cannot say,’ I said. ‘All I know is, that silk is both strange to me and yet oddly familiar.’
‘But to make you feel so faint?’
‘Could you not smell the lavender?’
‘What lavender?’ she asked.
Had I imagined it? I shook my head, trying to plumb the depths of my memory, but there was nothing save for the disquieting feeling – an intimation, if you will – that this silk had once been of great significance to me, long ago.
On my way home that late afternoon I came upon a beggar, a young woman in rags sitting at the edge of the roadway at the junction of Church Street with Paternoster Row, where the wheels of carts and carriages passed perilously close as they rounded the corner. As I approached she held out a bundle. At first I thought she was offering goods for sale and prepared to shake my head, as usual, without slowing my step. Street pedlars can be the very devil if you show the slightest interest. More than once have I been followed almost to my door by a seller desperate to offload his wares before nightfall.
As I drew near, she spoke. It was more of a whisper, barely audible, but in those few seconds there was a lull in the general hubbub of the street, so that I heard every word.
‘Madam, take him, please.’
Normally I would have hurried on. There are just too many beggars in London to help. If I stopped to offer a farthing to each one I would empty my pockets within five minutes of leaving the front door. But she was different, her face and hands a dark mahogany colour, unusual even in this part of London with its immigrations and shifting populations, where you are just as likely to hear other languages as your own. And she looked so young, a child almost.
Again she offered the bundle. ‘He is a good boy, madam. Take him, I beg of you.’
The bundle began to whimper as she pulled the rags away to reveal its face: a baby no more than a few days old, its cheeks paler than hers, sallow even, but just as thin. At that moment a carriage rounded the corner at speed, and only the fast actions of the coachman saved us from being trampled to death by his horses.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘It’s not safe here. Come with me.’ People gaped, of course. I would have done the same: whatever was a young lady dressed in silks doing with a dark-skinned beggar girl? But I didn’t care. Something about the desperate expression on her face had touched my heart.
We stopped at a food stall and purchased a hot meat pie and a glass of milk.
‘I cannot pay, madam,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I have nothing to give. All I wish is for my child to live.’ She looked down at the baby lying silently in her arms, tears leaving pale streaks on her cheeks.
‘I want nothing in return,’ I said, passing her my handkerchief. ‘You are clearly famished, so please eat. Then we can talk.’
She wiped her face, took the pie and devoured it in four great mouthfuls, as though she had not eaten for days. Then she took the milk and gulped it down, wide eyes darting nervously around all the while. I returned the mug to the stall.
‘Now you must explain. Whose is this child?’
‘He is mine, madam. A fine boy, as you see. But I cannot keep him.’ I did not ask why, for the reasons were all too evident. She could barely keep herself, the poor child. Although well-spoken she had clearly fallen on hard times, most likely as a consequence of misplaced faith in a white man’s promises. She may have been in service, just as I had been, and been dismissed when her condition became obvious.
She burst into tears once more. ‘All I want is for him to have a good life.’
‘Have you tried the parish?’
‘The priest sent me packing,’ she sobbed. ‘I am not married, you see . . .’
The parish was supposed to help women in her situation, but I knew they were overwhelmed.
‘Have you heard of the Foundling Hospital?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
‘They may take him,’ I said. ‘It is worth trying.’ What I did not tell her is that the Hospital itself is also swamped with mothers desperate to give their babies a chance in life. I had heard they ran a kind of lottery: depending on the colour of ball you picked up at the entrance, you could be turned away or allowed in. Then, only if your child passed the medical examination would they be accepted.
‘They will care for him and give him a good education,’ I said. ‘Then if at some time in the future your circumstances improve, you may go and reclaim him. They will ask you to leave a token, the half of something which you will keep so that you can prove you are his mother.’
As her face brightened it became even more painfully obvious how young she really was, probably no more than sixteen. How much my heart ached for her.
‘Where is this place?’ she asked.
‘You can read?’ She nodded.
I begged a slip of paper and a pencil from the stallholder and wrote Lamb’s Conduit Field, Bloomsbury and then, below, Miss Charlotte, Costumière, Draper’s Lane.
‘Here is sixpence for the coach,’ I said. ‘Let me know how you fare.’
She tucked the slip and the coin into her bodice. ‘How can I ever repay you?’ she sniffed.
‘There is no need, child,’ I said. ‘I wish you well.’
As I watched her walk away, a shiver went down my spine.
That could have been my mother.
3
Stomacher: a triangular panel placed between the bodice edges of an open robe. It may be boned and is often elaborately decorated and sometimes laced across the upper border.
Each day after that I waited, expecting to see her face on my doorstep with the child in her arms, but when after a week she had not returned, I dared to hope. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had taken a white ball, and the child had passed the Hospital’s medical inspection. With luck he would be placed with a good, kind foster mother who knew how to keep young babies alive, and then at the age of five he would return to the Foundling Hospital.
There, even though he would never know the love of a family, he would at least be fed and clothed, and taught the skills he would need for the apprenticeship he would take up at fourteen. And if the people caring for you did not show you much affection, at least you had the company of your fellows. I often wonder how my best friend from those days is faring now, recalling how she and I would climb into bed with each other to keep warm on the coldest nights, how we shared our food and stood up for each other against unfairness.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he would survive and go on to live a good life, as I have done. He might grow up into a fine young man and if he was lucky, he would meet his love and have a family of his own, for that is the best we can hope for in this precarious life of ours. But would he ever see his mother again? Would he find himself looking in the glass, as I do, trying to imagine what his mother was like?
I wonder whether my mother had a little mole on her chin, like mine, and whether she was dark-haired and brown-eyed; or are those traits I have inherited from my father, whoever he was?
I ponder, too, what brought her to such despair, twice, that she had to give up both of her daughters? These questions lurk at the edges of my mind and I usually try to fend them off for fear they will drag me into a morass of introspection. But my meeting with this young woman had brought them tumbling back, irres
istible as rain.
Just after my fourth birthday, the foster mother with whom the authorities had placed me, and who I loved with all my heart, told me that I would shortly have to go back to the Hospital to join my fellow foundlings. Older ‘brothers and sisters’ who lived with us had mysteriously disappeared when they reached that age, but for some reason I had never imagined that it could happen to me.
‘But why?’ I’d howled, clasping her skirts as though I could hold onto her forever.
‘I would keep you in an instant, sweet child, but you must return because I am not your real mother.’
‘What is a real mother? Who is she?’ I wailed. When you are a child, the person who provides you with the constancy of love, along with warmth, food and comfort, is your mother.
‘We do not know,’ she said. ‘And nor will you ever know, like as not, because you were given up as a foundling.’
‘What is a foundling?’
‘A foundling is a child with no mother or father to care for them,’ she explained patiently.
‘Where have they gone? Are they dead?’ The concept felt remote.
‘Perhaps. Or it may be that for some reason they could not keep you.’
Although I asked again and again, she was never able to satisfy my hunger, and hanging over me was the deep well of fear and sorrow of knowing that someday soon she too was going to give me up. Was I not good enough to have a proper mother? Even though I behaved impeccably from then onwards, always helping as best I could with the housework and with the other little ones, the day inexorably approached. I was torn from her arms and returned to the Hospital, where I became just a number, a child to be controlled and moulded into an adult, a child not worthy of a mother’s love; and where such misery and homesickness engulfed me that I felt sure I must die from it.
Our hearts ached for what we had never known. Not a day passed without my imagining how my mother would arrive to claim me. I dreamed about it: how she would sweep into the driveway in a coach and four and recognise me immediately before whisking me away with promises of new clothes, delicious sweetmeats, the most comfortable feather mattress and a pretty coverlet on my bed.