“I can’t wait to hear your waltz again at the concert.” Maddie wrapped her arms around Sophie’s shoulders, nuzzling into the crook of her neck. “In a proper hall, with the audience wrapped around your clever fingers. Just like I am.”
Sophie’s smile wobbled at little at the corners. “Of course.”
They had dinner with Sophie’s family and made their way back to Maddie’s attic. The room was crowded now with piles of silk programs, plain silk backgrounds with deep blue text.Roseingravewas prominent, as wasFor the Benefit of the Weavers’ Library and Cooperative Society.
And, to Maddie’s gratification, her beloved lit up at the border of tiny songbirds that framed the text. “Not sparrows,” Sophie said.
“Nightingales,” Maddie confirmed. “And oh, how they’ll sing...”
Later, in the darkness with dawn so far off, Maddie lay on her back and stared up at the shafts of moonlight on the ceiling. They crept slowly along the plaster, bending around the beams, slicing across the heavy frame of the loom.
Sophie rolled over and snuggled close, chilled. Maddie felt as much as heard her, Sophie’s lips moving against the side of her shoulder. “Still awake?” she murmured.
“Just thinking.”
Sophie stretched. “About what?”
Maddie slid an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Sophie’s small, round form fit perfectly against the curve of Maddie’s waist and hip. “What if it’s not enough?” she asked.
Sophie made a sound indicating confusion.
Maddie tried again. “We’re taking out the worst villain of the lot—but the system will stay in place. They used to smash machines, you know? Before, when the power looms were new, the handloom weavers sabotaged a lot of the factory machinery to protest the way the power looms had replaced them. It landed a lot of those weavers in jail or worse—and the power looms stayed all the same. Because the machines aren’t the system.”
“I must have dozed off a little,” Sophie replied with a yawn. “Because my poor brain couldn’t make any sense of what you just said.”
Maddie let out a breath. “The problem was never the power loom—it was the people who wanted power looms because they were cheaper and produced faster. It was the way all the factory owners were chasing profits at the expense of workers’ wages and livelihood—their health and happiness. Theproblem,” she said, “is when people think the factory is more important than the people who work there.”
“Something like that is happening in music,” Sophie said after a moment. “Mr. Broadwood’s piano factory in London can make five new pianos in a single day. And that’s just with people—nobody’s invented a machine for building pianos yet.”
“So what will your father do when theydostart building machines to build pianos?”
“Build a better piano-building machine, I expect,” Sophie said, with a faint laugh. “And the faster they make pianos, the more people they will need to tune them.” She paused. “But you already did something like this. When the factories began making cheaper broadcloth than you could weave, you switched to ribbon making.”
“Because they haven’t yet made a machine for designing patterns,” Maddie said. “A Jacquard head can’t punch its own cards. Yet,” she added grimly.
The moonlight gleamed on the metal Jacquard head, as though it were listening.
Sophie stroked a line over her collarbone, fingers soft and soothing. “Yes, there are probably more inventions coming that will upset the way things are done. But you’ve changed course before. And you don’t have to do it alone.” Back and forth her fingers went, the slide of them slightly hypnotizing Maddie. “What if you came to court with me?”
Maddie blinked into the moonlight. “Have you decided to go, then?”
“Well...” Sophie’s fingers paused briefly, then resumed their pace. Back and forth, back and forth. “Not as yet. But maybe sooner than I originally thought. A lot of it depends on how things go tomorrow night. But... I’ve been thinking a great deal about what my mother said. About running out of time, and not letting my best playing years slip me by. And if I were to go, I’d like to have a companion with me—someone who knows me, and who I could trust among so many strangers. We can tell people you’re my maid—or better, my assistant, someone steady and respectable who manages my schedule and keeps my wild artistic impulses in check. You could even keep designing patterns, so you would have an income of your own. Though I don’t know if you could bring the loom.”
“No,” Maddie whispered, anguished. “I couldn’t bring the loom.” Not unless she took it apart, piece by piece, and reassembled it somewhere else. But she couldn’t picture it anywhere else—it had always stood here, a testament to her mother’s drive and ingenuity and skill. Maddie couldn’t imagine a way to move it that wouldn’t feel like destruction.
But what good was a weaver without her loom? What was Maddie, if not a weaver?
Sophie’s fingers stopped stroking and slid around Maddie’s shoulder, gripping tight. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” Maddie said at once, looking down into Sophie’s eyes, which were liquid silver with moonlight and worry. “And you know I’ll never lie to you.”
“I know.” Sophie’s answering smile was haunted. Maddie kissed her lips free of it, and found a better way to spend the last hours of the night.
Chapter Seventeen
The concert evening was clear apart from a few trailing wisps of cloud, as though the sky itself had put on handmade lace for the occasion. Everyone appeared in their very best: the gentry, the merchants, and the factory families. The only difference was the latter would bundle their finery back to the pawnshop on Monday morning, until Friday’s pay could redeem the good clothing for church.
Sophie had Julia help her into her concert gown of pale blue silk with a net overlay. The net was extremely fine and had been embellished with white embroidery in the shape of long, graceful plumes; they feathered over the bodice and short sleeves, and trailed down the center of the gown to the hem.
