by Liz Trenow
The ground floor remains dedicated to the business—the showroom in the front and their shared office and studio at the back—although their eldest son, Jean, has recently persuaded his father to support the rental of a new “manufactory”: three large warehouse rooms on the other side of Brick Lane where the silk is stored, throwsters throw, and warps are wound. There is less “leakage” that way, he says.
He is talking about setting up his own looms in the manufactory, too, so that they can meet the requirements of new laws setting weavers’ pay. That way, he says, they will not have to support the costs of weavers working at home, as they will weave at his looms and he can pay them by the piece. “It’s so much more efficient, Papa,” he says. “And we can keep a closer eye on quality.”
The business has survived turbulent times. In the face of new import freedoms, many, even some of the most successful, foundered, thousands of weavers were put out of work, and their families starved. Other companies moved out of London altogether, to avoid paying the rates demanded by the new acts. Henri always claimed that the survival of Lavalle, Vendôme & Sons was entirely due to the extraordinary achievements of their in-house designer.
The princess was not clothed in Henri’s silk for her nuptial celebrations, but it was chosen by one of her ladies-in-waiting, which was enough to catch the eye of the new queen. Herself an amateur botanist, she took the new naturalism to heart and promulgated it widely amongst her acolytes. Straight lines and geometrical patterns were sent into the wilderness as the artist Hogarth’s The Analysis of Beauty became the benchmark for artistic endeavor. The serpentine curve became de rigueur in fashion, furnishings, furniture, and all other decorative arts.
Her paintings have never been hung on walls, as Mr. Gainsborough suggested, but for nearly four decades, Anna Vendôme’s designs have been worn and highly sought after by society ladies. As the orders flooded in, Henri was compelled to employ more than a hundred weavers to keep up with demand. Their silks were even exported across the Atlantic, to be worn by the wealthy aristocrats of the newly independent United States of America.
The mercers Sadler & Son profited too, becoming one of Henri’s major customers, although they saw little of the family in society. Aunt Sarah finally achieved her lifetime ambition of moving to Ludgate Hill, just along from the Hinchliffes. She is now a grandmother several times over, with Lizzie well married into a wealthy family and William’s two sons following him into the business.
How did I manage to do it all, Anna wonders, while giving birth to seven children, burying four of them, and raising the remaining three into adulthood? Mariette fell in love with and married the son of a silversmith whom she met at the French church—they live just a few streets away. She and Anna are like sisters and supported each other in caring for M. Lavalle and Clothilde—who was eventually persuaded to move into the house when she became too frail to work—as they neared the end of their lives.
Then, just as things were becoming easier, Theodore died suddenly while delivering a sermon in his dear, old village church. Just as he would have had it, people said at the funeral, but it was no solace for Anna, who has missed him dearly every day since. Jane came to live with them and remains with them still, which is great consolation, for she is a dear thing, uncomplicated and undemanding, and has been a wonderful helpmeet with the children.
Throughout all of this sorrow and the heavy demands of domestic life, Anna has always managed to steal a few hours for her painting and designing. She loves to work in the office alongside Henri and their two sons, observing the coming and going of traders and weavers, enjoying and sometimes joining their conversations about trade, money, and politics.
Occasionally she will persuade her husband, or one of her children, to accompany her to the new Royal Academy of Arts exhibitions to see Mr. Gainsborough’s work, or to the British Museum where she can study and sketch the natural curiosities collected by Sir Hans Sloane. Before he died, Mr. Ehret introduced her to the books of botanical studies held in the library there, which have become a constant inspiration for her work. Dear Mr. Ehret. In his will he left Anna two of his prints, which hang on the walls of the salon with pride. Whenever she looks at them, she recalls how he taught her to observe line, shading, and color, right down to the tiniest detail. What a great debt I owe the man, she thinks to herself.
She remembers her own vague, unfocused longing on arriving in London, how the appreciation of the fascinating and surprising world all around her only led to greater frustration because, as her aunt would have it, a young lady entering polite society could not be allowed to have an occupation outside the home. She would never have been able to endure spending the rest of her life as an ornament for a conventional husband but, at the time, could see no way of avoiding that path.
Despite the unpromising start, she has enjoyed the most wonderful life in this city, she thinks to herself, a life full of family love, and of artistic and intellectual interest. She could not have asked for more.
And it is all on account of one man, the one now sleeping peacefully in his chair on the other side of the hearth. He snores lightly, shifts in his chair, and opens his eyes briefly, smiles at her and then falls asleep again. Even after all this time, his smile can still ambush her heart, causing it a momentary pause, a contraction of love.
She had known, of course, from the very moment that he rescued her on the street, and he claims that was the moment he knew, too. But she feels sure that, were it not for his moment of drunken foolishness, followed by his arrest and imprisonment, they would now be unhappily married to others. Both acknowledge that Charlotte was the agent of their good fortune and frequently tease her about it.
As their friendship deepened and the trust between them became stronger, Anna felt able gently to probe the seamstress about her personal life: how she managed to remain single and run her own independent business. At first she was reticent, but one day, when they had taken a good meal and a few glasses of claret together, Charlotte confided her greatest, most intimate secret.
She was the fourth daughter of a respectable family that had fallen on hard times when their father died prematurely, she said, and had been forced to find herself a job as seamstress to the household of a noble family. Unfortunately, the duke had a roving eye, which soon enough settled on the seventeen-year-old Charlotte, and he pressed his attentions upon her so forcibly that she had submitted for fear of losing her job.
A few months later, finding the situation insufferable, she began to resist him, with the inevitable consequence that she was told to leave. Her oldest sister, now married to a country vicar, took her in but, within a few short weeks, it became clear that the duke’s attentions had left an unwanted legacy.
The vicar feared that the scandal could lose him his living, but his wife, who for six years had failed to bear him a child, persuaded him that they could adopt the baby, pretending that it was theirs. Charlotte was sent away for her confinement while her sister wore cushions of ever-increasing size beneath her dresses. Thus it was that Peter—for that was his name—became Charlotte’s “nephew.”
“He has a better life than I could ever have provided, and I see him every month. Although,” she added wistfully, “I feel our parting each time like the cut of a knife.”
“Did you never want to marry, so that you could take him back?”
Charlotte paused and poured herself another glass of wine. “No, I am happy as I am. I have worked hard to set up my business, and if I married, I might have to give it up. Besides, how can I ever trust any man again?” she said. “And how could I take my son away from my sister when they have loved him as their own for so many years?”
Peter is now grown into a handsome young man with children of his own who frequently visited their “great-aunt.” Anna, invited to meet them one day, could plainly see the likeness of her friend reflected in their faces, and Charlotte’s pride and happiness in their
company was a joy to behold.
• • •
To everyone in the family but her father, theirs had seemed such an unlikely match. Anna can still recall the look of utter horror on Aunt Sarah’s face when Henri turned up at Spital Square that morning.
“Mr. Henri Vendôme, madam,” Betty announced.
“Tell him he has come to the wrong address. The business entrance is next door,” her aunt said firmly.
“No, Aunt, he has come to see Father,” Anna cried, dropping the book with which she had been trying unsuccessfully to occupy herself for the past half hour. She flew down the stairs to where Henri was waiting on the doorstep, nervously shifting from foot to foot, smart but uncomfortable in his best blue serge, his hair neatly tied back beneath what looked like a new cap. Under his arm was a brown paper parcel containing the silk brocade.
“Come in, come up,” she said, beckoning him with a conspiratorial wink. “Father knows.” When they reached the top of the stairs, Theodore was already on the landing. Anna pushed Henri forward and the two men shook hands.
In an unsteady voice, Henri began, “Sir, I have come to ask—”
“Don’t stand on ceremony, boy,” Theodore said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Anna has already told me the reason for your visit. Of course you have my consent. Knowing how she feels about you, I could not be more delighted.”
At that point, Sarah emerged from the salon door with Lizzie behind her. “Whatever is going on out here?” she snapped.
“Sister dear, meet my future son-in-law, Henri,” Theodore announced. “Henri, this is my sister, Mrs. Sarah Sadler, and my niece, Elizabeth.” Henri offered his hand, but it was ignored. Aunt Sarah’s mouth gaped, her jowls flapping loosely, as though she had seen an apparition.
Lizzie had a fit of the giggles and was burbling congratulations when her mother seemed to gather her senses. “Have you lost your mind, Theodore?” she gasped before turning to Anna. “Have I not warned you about the unsuitability of this sort of friendship?”
Anna stood firm, holding tightly on to Henri’s hand in case he felt minded to bolt. “Come into the drawing room,” she said, pulling him past Sarah and Lizzie through the doorway.
“Sir, I must ask you to leave while we discuss the matter,” Sarah said. Anna could hear her uncle’s footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Hello, hello. Do we have company?” he bellowed. At the sight of Henri, he stopped in his tracks. “And who is this, may I be so bold?”
“My fiancé, Uncle,” Anna said. “Please let me introduce you to Monsieur Henri Vendôme.”
Henri held out the parcel that he’d tucked under his arm. “I am pleased to meet you, sir. I have brought the silk as discussed, for consideration for the royal wedding.”
“Then why did you not call at the tradesmen’s entrance, boy?”
“He is my fiancé, Uncle, as I said. He has gained permission from Father for my hand. Isn’t it wonderful? And he has kindly brought the fabric he has woven from my design that William told you about at breakfast, remember?” Anna took the parcel from Henri and ran to the window, ripping open the string and paper, and allowed the silk to unfold, glittering and gleaming in the light just as it had done at Wood Street the previous day.
“Good God,” Joseph said, coming to the window to see for himself. “That is a very fine piece of silk, young man, and a most striking design.”
He pulled his magnifying glass from his waistcoat pocket and lifted the fabric close to his face.
“Did you weave this yourself?”
“I did, sir. It is my master piece.”
Joseph put his eye to the glass once more. “Excellent work. I very much admire your use of points rentrées; seems to have gone out of fashion of late, but this makes for very fine definition of your curves. Tricky stuff. Remind me again, who is your designer?”
“For goodness’ sake, Uncle,” Anna burst out. “Were you not listening when I told you at breakfast? It is my design.”
He frowned at her. “But how…?”
“I will explain later, but for now, will you all please welcome into your house Henri Vendôme, the young man I intend to marry?”
• • •
The old grandfather clock strikes ten o’clock, interrupting her reverie. The fire has burned low, and she considers putting on another log. But tomorrow will be another full day, and they both need their rest, now that they are old.
She puts down her tapestry and steps over to the sleeping man, gently takes the newspaper from his hands, and kisses him on the forehead.
“Come, Husband,” she whispers. “It’s time for bed.”
A Note on the History That Inspired The Hidden Thread
When I was researching the history of my family’s silk business, which started in Spitalfields, East London, in the early 1700s (and is still weaving today in Sudbury, Suffolk), the first recorded address that I could discover was in Wilkes Street, then called Wood Street. Wonderfully, the house is still there.
Just a few yards away, on the corner of Wilkes Street and Princelet Street, then Princes Street, is the house where the eminent silk designer Anna Maria Garthwaite lived from 1728 until her death in 1763. It was here, at the very heart of the silk industry, that she produced over a thousand patterns for damasks and brocades, many of which are today in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I was thrilled to realize that my ancestors would have known, and possibly worked with, the most celebrated textile designer of the eighteenth century, whose silks were sought after by the nobility in Britain and America.
She was noted for her naturalistic, botanically accurate designs and credited in the Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce of 1751 as one who “introduced the Principles of Painting into the loom.” She lived in the Age of Enlightenment, when scientists and artists were obsessed with exploring and recording the natural world and when botanical illustrators such as Georg Ehret became minor celebrities.
In an unpublished manuscript in the National Art Library, unfinished at her death, the late Natalie Rothstein, formerly curator of textiles at the V&A, hints at a tantalizing connection between the artist William Hogarth and the weavers of Spitalfields: his famous series of prints, Industry and Idleness, published in 1747, shows weavers at their looms. Six years later, he published An Analysis of Beauty, in which he proposed that the serpentine curve—as seen in nature and the human form—was the essence of visual perfection. It is quite possible, Rothstein suggests, that he could had been inspired by Anna Maria’s designs.
Yet no one, not even Natalie Rothstein, has been able conclusively to discover how Anna Maria, who showed a youthful, artistic talent, learned the highly technical and complex skills of designing for silk. Or how a single woman by then in her middle years managed to develop and conduct such a successful business on her own account in what was a largely male-dominated industry. It is this mystery that sparked the idea for the novel.
It is said that at that time, a quarter of all those living in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green spoke only French—they had their own institutions, including a French church, which has since been a synagogue and is now a mosque. Although, as Protestants, the Huguenots were officially welcomed in England, there is much evidence that these refugees were subject to racism and mistrust, much as refugees fleeing persecution in their own lands are today.
But now, a word of warning: although inspired by real-life events and people, this novel is pure fiction and I have taken enormous liberties with history, in particular the timing of events. Anna Maria hailed from Leicestershire, not Suffolk, and did not come to London until she was forty. Her fame was at its height in the 1730s and ’40s, and she died in 1763 at the good, old age of seventy-five.
Although there were always rumblings of discontent among weavers, the “cutters riots,” and most notably the trial and hanging of D’Oyle and Valline, did not take place until the 1
760s, around the time of Anna Maria’s death. It is in this period of extreme industrial unrest that I have chosen to set the novel, even though Anna Maria probably witnessed little of it.
So if you are an expert in the history of that time, or the life of Anna Maria, I beg your forgiveness. Novelists do not write history but merely take inspiration from its characters and events. But for the curious, and just to prove that I do know the difference between fact and fiction, here is a timeline of the events that inspired me and some of the books and websites that have helped me build a picture of life in Spitalfields at that time:
1681
First major wave of Huguenot persecution in France, when “Dragonnades” were first used—and consequent migration.
1680s
French church L’Église de l’Hôpital first established in Spitalfields. It was rebuilt in 1742 and since then has been a synagogue and a mosque.
1685
Revocation of Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, which meant that Protestant worship was no longer tolerated in France. By 1690 more than 200,000 Huguenots had emigrated.
1688
Anna Maria Garthwaite born at Harston, near Grantham in Leicestershire, on 14 March.
1712
Huguenots admitted to Weavers Company as “foreign” masters.
1719
Riots in Spitalfields, Colchester, and Norwich over imports of calico.
1722
First Walters silk weavers, Benjamin and Thomas, recorded as working and living in Spitalfields.
1726
Anna Maria left Grantham to live in York with her twice-widowed sister, Mary.