The Silk Vendetta Read Online Free PDF Page B

behind. We started up a silk industry in this country. Don’t you think that was a wonderful thing to have done?”
    I said fervently that I did.
    He smiled at me and went on: “In a few years we were producing materials that were as good as anything that came out of France. It was hard work, but we wanted to work. We were all very poor for a long time and then we began to prosper.”
    “I’m glad we did,” said Julia. “I should have hated to be poor.”
    “It’s really an exciting story, don’t you think so, Lenore?”
    “Oh, I do. I do,” I assured him.
    “To come to a new country with nothing but your faith and hope and determination to succeed.” His face shone with zeal. I thought: There is something very nice about Philip. I shall be sorry when he goes back to school.
    “But there were endless troubles,” he went on. “When the country started importing French silks the Spitalfields workers were near to starvation. People wanted French silks although those we were making were just as good. They just thought French silk sounded better than Spitalfields silk. My father told me all about the trouble they had. The people were very fierce. There were riots. The workers roamed the streets. There was no work for their looms. If they saw a woman in a calico gown they tore it off her. ‘Silk! Silk!’ they shouted. ‘Everyone must wear Spitalfields silk!’ ”
    “They must have been very fierce,” I said. “I should not have wanted my dress to be torn off me however good the cause.”
    “They were fighting for their livelihoods. They had come over here leaving behind everything they possessed; they had set up their looms; they had produced beautiful materials; and just when they were beginning to prosper, the government allowed French silk to be brought into the country and people foolishly thought it was better and sentenced our workers to starvation.”
    “If their work was so good why did people want to buy the French?”
    “English people always think foreigners do better work than their own people. Besides the French had a reputation. They thought French clothes and materials must be better than the English. In any case, they almost put us out of business.”
    “Why do you feel so strongly now?” I asked. “It is all over.”
    “I feel for those poor people because I know how they suffered. And it could happen again.”
    “Poor things,” said Cassie. “It must be dreadful to be hungry. And the little children too …”
    “They are the first to suffer,” said Philip. “Oh, it has been a long and violent history. There was a time just over a hundred years ago when there was great trouble. The government had just signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau which allowed French silks to be brought into the country free of tax; and the workers were desperate. When the King was on his way to Parliament they decided to present a petition to the House of Commons. They were of the opinion that the Duke of Bedford had been bribed by the French to agree to the Fontainebleau Treaty. After they had marched to the House and forced an adjournment they went to Bedford House and attacked it. The guards were called out and the Riot Act read. The workers fled, but not before many of them had been trampled down by the horses. Many died. They had thought they had come to a safe haven when they left their homes, but they have had to fight all the way through to keep going.”
    “And they did,” I said, “and all is well with them now.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “One never really knows what difficulties are going to arise. That’s how it is in life, Lenore.”
    “But people find a way out of their difficulties.”
    “Some do,” he replied.
    Julia yawned. “It is time we went back,” she said.
    I grew fond of Philip during those holidays. It was so different when Charles was not there. He used to come up to see Grand’mere. He would handle the bales of material knowledge-ably and talk about the weave. He