Chapter 16
Only a few hours later, the carriage rolled up a long drive edged with elms and crossed over the River Medway, and Clare came into view at last. Its stone facade glowed gold in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, and its two wings reached out as if to embrace the travelers.
It was a massive, sprawling place, and yet it looked warm and good-natured, like a Labrador out basking in the last of the sun.
Gran’s gardens tumbled down the gentle hill, and off in the distance, Charlotte could see Anna’s stables and the new paddocks for her horses.
Home, Charlotte thought, and took her first deep breath all week.
She needed it after the dreadful final hours of the journey cooped up with Warrick, which she’d enlivened by shooting air-kisses at him while the dowager wasn’t looking, and counting the many strange ways in which his face could contort.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to run down to the river, or to stroll over to Gran’s orangerie, or for any idling whatsoever. Charlotte had work to do, especially if she was going to find nine thousand pounds by the end of the summer.
The funds will come from either my dowry or the silk, Charlotte thought. And first thing the next morning, she had the servants bring a landau around once more and set off for nearby Maidstone, accompanied by Ivy and two armed outriders.
It wasn’t long before she was clip-clopping into the town, past the old timber frames with their overhanging second stories jumbled next to more modern buildings of brick.
The smell of juniper from the gin distillery grew stronger with each turn of the wheels, letting her know they were drawing closer to the silk mill.
The mill’s heavy doors were open and a bustle of activity greeted her, with throwsters and dyers on the first floor busy at their work of twisting the raw silk cocoons brought in from growers in Italy and dipping the threads into vats of color, their recipes tightly guarded, to produce pinks, vermilions, blacks, greens, peaches, and vast arrays of whites and ivories.
The looms and weavers were on the second floor, which had a ceiling high enough to accommodate not only the harness looms for plain silks but also the troublesome Jacquard loom, which looked like a spindly wooden spider and had a huge apparatus attached at the top for the punched cards that controlled the warp threads and produced patterns in silk damask.
The third floor, reserved for hand painting and embroidery, was by far Charlotte’s favorite, but all of it made her blood quicken.
Charlotte greeted the dyers and went up a flight of stairs, pausing to listen to the comfortable clack of the looms combining with the chatter of the weavers to make a cheerful, industrious noise.
Only the vast double-height space reserved for the Jacquard loom stood silent, except for the occasional shout of “Merde!” from Monsieur LaForey.
Mrs. Cordelon, Ivy’s mother, came bustling over. “Lady Charlotte, Ivy. How glad I am you’re here.”
“I’ve been yearning to see the mill up and running. It all looks marvelous, only”—Charlotte tilted her head in Monsieur LaForey’s direction—“our resident Frenchman doesn’t sound pleased.”
“No,” the other woman agreed, but she said nothing more as they headed over to inspect Monsieur LaForey’s latest attempt at the feather pattern.
Charlotte frowned at the scrap in her hand. “I suppose it’s better, but not by much. Mrs. Cordelon, do you have any experience with damask?”
Mrs. Cordelon shook her head. “None, I’m afraid. The Jacquard loom is so new, and I—”
“Non! Of course she does not understand the loom!” called Monsieur LaForey, sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle of little cards with holes punched into them, each one a guide for where the weft was meant to lift to form the pattern.
“Your feather is too much compliqueé, but I will get it anytime!”
Charlotte had her doubts, which was unfortunate, because damask was rare and complicated to make, which meant they could charge significantly more for it.
But she couldn’t focus on the Jacquard loom yet, not if they were to produce four more silk patterns.
She needed to buy more traditional looms, hire more weavers, and find a way to juggle the limited funds left to cover both.
There was no choice but to leave the Jacquard loom in Monsieur LaForey’s hands, at least for the moment.
Even if you sell every bolt of silk you make, you’ll still only have two thousand pounds at the end of the summer. It’s far short of what you need.
It was an inconvenient thought, and Charlotte pushed it firmly out of her mind.
Her houseguests were coming, and her suitors, too.
Perhaps one of them would provide the answer.