Blackberry and Wild Rose

by Sonia Velton

  Then there were the old silks. Cuts of fabric that had been stitched and unstitched a hundred times, still shabbily radiant, hung above stalls or folded on tables. Styles from bygone days, which no lady of quality would ever wear again, left to be picked over by the masses, haggling for a good price on a piece of a life they would never have. The fruit and flowers of Spitalfields market had been woven into those fabrics with a clarity that made my heart race.

  And what of the men who made the silks, who designed the patterns and choreographed the endless dance of warp with weft? I did not have to go to Spitalfields market to see them. There was one on my street, just across the road from my father’s house in Spital Square. Elias Thorel was always in his workroom when I walked past, draping a bolt of fabric over his counter for a mercer to consider or sitting alone with his ledgers. I stole glances at him from time to time, as if they were candied cherries. Then one day he looked up and saw me too.

  The walls of the garret were lined with shelves, boxes of shuttles and bobbins among silk thread wound onto spindles and spools. There were the pale cream and intense blue they were already using, but also other colors, greens, grays, and frost silver, which would become the color changes of the weft. The laborious process of mounting the loom must have gone on for days without my knowing he was up here. The sight of the loom being clothed with thread in readiness for weaving was a poignant one for me. In the early days I had thought that Elias and I were well matched in every respect. I had imagined that the union of his talent for weaving and mine for art would be a fruitful one.

  As the wife of a master silk weaver, I painted with new enthusiasm. I was not just painting flowers, I could almost feel the finished silk live and breathe beneath my brush. When I had something I was pleased with, I took it to Elias. He was upstairs in the withdrawing room, bent over his papers with his quill in his hand. His wig was on its stand beside him and his head was resting on his hand, fingers scratching at his shorn hair.

  “Mr. Thorel?”

  “Is something amiss?” he said, frowning slightly and putting down his quill.

  “Not at all,” I said, enjoying the flutter of anticipation in my belly. Foolish, I know, but I felt like a child seeking approval from a parent. “I just wanted to show you this.” I put the watercolor in front of him and walked around his desk so that we could look at it together. Suddenly I felt nervous, wondering what he might think of the flowers curling up the page.

  He picked up the pattern, then twisted round to face me.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  I could not help but smile. “It is a design, husband. Perhaps for the next silk you weave.”

  He looked at the painting, perplexed. “But you jest, of course,” he said.

  “Jest? No, I do not.” I reached out and traced a finger along the meander of foliage. “See how I have made the flowers into a repeating pattern? Imagine it made in silk, it would be—”

  I looked up at him then and saw that his mouth had a strange twist to it, hooked up at the side. The words I had thought I would say faded to nothing in my throat. Elias gave his head a slight shake as if dislodging his thoughts. “Why do you concern yourself with such things?” he said.

  “Because I want to be part of what you do. Think of it, I could paint the designs for the silks you weave. Not the heavy geometric styles we have now, but something more natural and realistic. I have watched you and learned—”

  “Learned! You presume to learn in a few months what my family has learned over generations?”

  “Not at all. I just thought it was something we could do together.” My voice was starting to waver, but I tried desperately not to cry in front of him. He stared at me a moment, then his face softened and he pulled me down onto his lap, crushing the painting into my skirts as he did so.

  “You do not need to be part of what I do,” he murmured into my ear. “You do plenty already, organizing the servants and planning the meals. If you want to do more to help, ask Pastor Gabeau—there are always shirts to be sewn for the poorhouse. But silk? No, you cannot do that.”

  Of course, more sewing. “You are right, husband,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice. Elias tugged the pattern out from underneath me and smoothed it on my lap, studying it properly. Then he laughed. “What is a dezine, Mrs. Thorel? You must know, surely, if you are to be a pattern designer.” I swallowed hard, wishing I had not opened myself up to his ridicule. I freed myself from his arms and got up, but he had not finished. “Perhaps it was you, not Mongeorge, who brought the secret of creating luster in silk taffeta from Lyon to Spitalfields!”

  There was a brightness to his eyes as he searched my face for a reaction. I thought it was misplaced humor, but it wasn’t. It was the first spark of a fire within him that would later consume us.

  * * *

  Before I left the garret, I went back to the trapdoor and reached down to retrieve what I had left on the stairs. It was a birdcage with a pair of linnets inside, fluttering against the white metal bars as it swung in my hand. I took it over to the long lights and hung it from a hook in the ceiling, stilling it with my hands and whistling gently at the birds as they fussed on their perches and eyed their new home.

  “There, there, sweet things,” I whispered. “You’ll be happy here. There is not a Huguenot weaver in Spitalfields who does not love a songbird.”

  4

  Sara

  I found Mrs. Swann in the tavern downstairs. She was drying glasses from the night before with a rag and placing them upside down on the many shelves that lined the wall behind.

  “Feeling better, my dear?” she asked, as I climbed onto one of the stools in front of the bar.

  My throat tightened again, but it was not because that man had throttled me. Instead, it was the inevitable twisting of my gut and stilling of the air in my lungs that happened every time I tried to talk to Mrs. Swann about anything. I shook my head.

  “Ah, well,” she said, unconcerned, “you will soon get used to him.” She turned her back to me and stepped lightly onto a footstool so that she could reach the highest shelf. “You’ve got a good customer there now,” she announced to the row of pewter pots in front of her. “It’s always the ones who like that kind of thing who keep coming back. I must say, he seemed happy enough when he left. He tipped me an extra sixpence!”

  When she turned back to face me, she picked up the rag and tossed it toward me so that it landed damply on my hand. “Here, make yourself useful instead of just sitting there.” She reached under the bar and brought out another cloth. Her hand twisted briskly in a glass while she stared at me expectantly.

  I picked up the rag and dragged it off my hand, dropping it into a crumpled pile on the polished wood of the bar. Mrs. Swann’s hand paused inside the glass. “Like that, is it?” she said, her voice quiet. “Too good to dry glasses, are we?”

  I looked up at her. I had always thought that her eyes were black, but with the morning sun streaming in through the tavern window, I saw that they were not. It was her pupils, which were strangely dilated, even in the light. Around them was a thin margin of green so intense it was almost catlike. Now that Mrs. Swann had stopped her purposeful drying, the glass began to shake slightly in her hand. She put it down abruptly on the wood, so hard I thought it might crack.

  “Spit it out, then,” she said crisply, “whatever it is that’s on your mind.”

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what? Dry the glasses? Help me a little? All right then, be off with you to your room, and I’m only saying that because of what happened last night. I won’t be so kind tomorrow.”

  “No, I mean I can’t do all this.” I raised my hand and waved it above my head, indicating the floor above the tavern and everything that went on there. “I’ll never lie with that man again.”

  Mrs. Swann narrowed her eyes and leaned both hand
s on the bar in front of me, one a bony claw clutching the wood, the other still wrapped in the cloth. “What do you mean?” She spoke each word deliberately.

  “I am leaving the Wig and Feathers, Mrs. Swann. I should like my purse back and all the money that was in it. I’ll not wait for him to kill me next time.”

  “I wish he’d done the job last night!” exclaimed Mrs. Swann, rearing up from the bar and shaking her hand free of the cloth. She folded her arms across her chest. “No, no, no,” she said, furiously shaking her head, “this will not do at all.”

  I slipped down from the stool and stood in front of her.

  “Mrs. Swann, you cannot keep me here. I am free to go whenever I choose. Now, please, just give me my money back.”

  “But why would you want to leave, Sara? What’s out there for a girl like you?”

  “I intend to find a position in service.”

  “In service!” screeched Mrs. Swann. “You’ll be a street miss before the week is out, you foolish girl. You’ll be poxed and clapped by Christmas!” Mrs. Swann wrinkled her face in distress. “You just don’t understand how well I look after my girls. Have you ever wanted for anything here? Have you?” she insisted, her expression both angry and confused. “When have you gone to bed without a full belly? When have you lacked for coal in the grate or clothes on your back? Never, you ungrateful wench, never!”

  “I have earned my keep a hundred times over, Mrs. Swann, and well you know it.”

  Mrs. Swann’s expression suddenly altered as if the wind had changed. She became wide-eyed and innocent-looking.

  “Have you indeed, my dear?” she said, her head bobbing like a children’s toy. “Then you must have your money back, mustn’t you?”

  For a moment I was wrong-footed, so I just stood there, gaping, the fear and anger I had summoned to confront her still fizzing round my veins.

  “You just wait there, my angel, while I go and get it.” She disappeared through a door and I heard her shoes tap-tapping down the stone steps to the cellar. I waited nervously, unsure who, or even what, might reappear. Mrs. Swann was as unpredictable as the weather.

  When she came back, I was almost relieved to see that she was simply carrying a leather-bound book. She returned behind the bar and placed the ledger heavily on the counter between us. Then she gave me an odd sort of smile, something between sympathy and triumph, and said, “I’m afraid you cannot leave just yet. At least, not until you have settled your account.” Then she opened the book and thumbed ostentatiously through its pages. “Here we are,” she said, twisting the book round so that I could see it and tapping on the page with her long fingernail.

  My name was written at the top and beneath it were long columns of figures. A penny here, sixpence there, sometimes a whole shilling. And by each amount was a date and the item to which it related: food and ale, board and lodging; the laundering of shifts and petticoats and the darning of stockings; the supply of fans and wigs and face powder; coal and wood for the fire; a poultice for this or that. Even a contribution to Nathanial’s keep was recorded against my name. I turned the page and kept on turning. Page after page of debt going back to the moment I’d first set foot in the Wig and Feathers, all recorded in Mrs. Swann’s own spidery hand.

  “So you see, my dear,” said Mrs. Swann, staring at me intently, the rim of green round her eyes all but disappeared, “there’s nothing left of your money. In fact,” she flicked on a few pages to where the writing stopped, ending with two-pence for a draught she had given me the night before to ease my throat, “you owe me money.”

  I stared at the page. A slightly wavering line had been drawn under the last entry and underneath it was a final tally: four pounds, eight shillings and sixpence.

  Mrs. Swann closed the ledger and walked around the bar so that she could stand next to me. The twisted fury of earlier had left her face and her expression was kindly, almost needy. She reached up and began to stroke my cheek. “My daughter,” she murmured. Then she laid her head against my shoulder. “No, no, no, you shall not leave me,” she said, into the gaudy folds of my whore’s frock.

  Esther

  “There’s a girl to see you, ma’am.”

  I looked up from my sewing. Moll, our scullery maid, was standing by the door, hands clasped in front of her, gazing at my feet as if she was not quite brave enough to look at me directly. I set down what I was doing and followed her out to the landing. From the top of the stairs I could see down into the hall. The girl was standing by the door, and at the sound of our approach she raised a pale face to look at me. I didn’t recognize her at first, but she clutched a book to her chest and when she saw me appear, she held it up and waved it at me. I could see that it was one of my King James Bibles and an image flashed into my mind of this girl standing in the lane behind the Wig and Feathers.

  “What shall I do with her, ma’am?” whispered Moll, who looked ready to shoo the creature out of the door along with the cat.

  “Just a moment,” I said.

  I have a box in the parlor full of buttons, scraps of material, and ribbons wound round bodkins. I keep a few coins in there too, for just this kind of circumstance. I pushed the buttons around with my finger and picked out a sixpence. I was about to go downstairs, when I opened the box again and poked around for a shilling instead. That old woman really had been most objectionable, and the poor girl needed as much help as I could give her.

  I dropped the coin into Moll’s hand and nodded toward the girl. Moll glanced up at me, but she knew better than to question my charity. At the foot of the stairs, I saw Moll try to give the coin to the girl, but she shook her head and pushed Moll’s hand away. Then she looked up at me again and said, “Beg pardon, madam, but I should like to speak with you, please.”

  I took her into the parlor where she sat on the sofa, sinking a little awkwardly into its soft cushions. When I settled myself on the chaise opposite her, she fixed me with an earnest gaze.

  “Mrs. Thorel,” she began, chewing briefly on her lower lip, “you were kind enough to suggest that there might be … hope for me.” She glanced at Moll, who hovered at the doorway dressing up her curiosity as usefulness. I flicked my hand to dismiss her. When we were quite alone, and the door was shut, I told the girl that she could speak freely.

  “Madam,” she went on, more purposeful now, “I want to have a new life, the one you said I could have. A position with a good household.”

  “And I do believe you can find one,” I replied, nodding in encouragement. “Even girls like you can work in service. I could ask at church if anyone has need of help. And, please, take this.” I held out the coin Moll had given back to me, but again she shook her head.

  “You are so kind, madam, but you see, my situation is rather difficult.”

  I knew what was coming next. I had heard it ten times or more. She was going to ask for more money. There would be an elderly mother afflicted with any manner of ills, or perhaps a baby to feed. I stood up to indicate our meeting was over. “I cannot help you any more than this,” I said firmly, placing the shilling on the table next to the sofa.

  Had I not seen for myself the viciousness of the old woman in the alley the day I had first met the girl, then I might not have believed what she told me next. But the fact was, I had seen her. I had seen the swipe of her hand when she boxed the girl’s ears and I had heard the spite in her voice when she spoke to her. I could well imagine that this girl was now in exactly the predicament she claimed to be in.

  “But it’s almost five pounds!” I said.

  “No, madam, just three pounds, eight shillings, and sixpence. She already has the pound I brought with me.”

  “Even so, I cannot possibly spare that much. Have you thought of going to the charity house?” Even as I said the words, I began to feel uncomfortable. I stared down at my hands because I did not want to look at the elegant curve of the velvet chai
se I was sitting on, or stare into the mother-of-pearl face of the grandfather clock standing by the wall, measuring my reluctance with each swing of its shiny brass pendulum. But even my hands told their own story, smooth and delicate as if they had never had to lift anything heavier than a needle to my sewing.

  The girl nodded. “Forgive me,” she said, standing up. “I had thought that the Christian kindness you spoke of was your own, not someone else’s.”

  We stood there for a moment, each eyeing the other. Me, caught in the web of my own well-meaning words; she, silent yet strangely defiant, as if challenging me to be the woman I had suggested I might be.

  If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

  How could those words not be true in my own household? Did the word of God that I took to the poorhouse mean nothing to me? Every time I step out of church, I am reborn. How could I not allow her to be made new as well? Even if it would cost me three pounds, eight shillings, and sixpence.

  “I shall expect you to work, to pay it back,” I said sternly. Her face broke into such a radiant smile that it was almost worth four pounds just to see it.

  * * *

  From the parlor window I watched her leave. I’ll own that when I saw how she skipped down the street with my money in her pocket, I wondered whether I would ever set eyes on her again.

  5

  Sara

  Mrs. Swann’s face puckered when she saw me. By then I had become an annoyance to her, like a comb in her hair that wouldn’t quite stay where it was put.