The second holiday read work of historical fiction I read was another dual narrative The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow.

Different timelines and narratives reveal the story of Maria Romano, a young orphan. She and her friend Nora, both adept at sewing, are called in one day after a grand lady visits the East End of London orphanage and admires their work.

She goes on to tell us that the grand lady who came a few months ago is a duchess and the patron of the Needlework Society and was visiting to inspect the work that the convent was doing for the poor children of the city. She was so impressed by the work Nora and me showed her that she is sending her housekeeper to interview us about going into service.

The house they are moved to, they soon discover is a royal household. Maria catches the eye of the young Prince and being young and obedient, responds when he requires her service and is unsuspecting of the trouble ahead for her, when their fun creates a dilemma for her.

A Series of Taped Interviews, 1970

An academic doing a PhD interviews patients in Helena Hall, an institutional asylum where thousands of women dwelled, recording their stories. Some speak of voices or fantasies, at least as the medical establishment puts it. Like Maria who imagined she worked for royalty and knew a prince. They called her Queenie. No one believed her story. And yet…

The transcriptions of the cassettes allow Maria to tell her story and the reader to decide whether she is a reliable narrator or not.

London 2008

In the modern day, Caroline Meadows is left a quilt by her grandmother, who spent a short time at Helena Hall. Either she or someone she knew made the quilt.

The central panel was an elegantly embroidered lover’s knot surrounded by a panel of elongated hexagons, and a frame of appliqué figures so finely executed that the stitches were almost invisible. And yet, for all the delicate needlework, the design of the quilt seemed to be quite random, the fabrics so various and contrasted it could have been made by several people, over a long period of time.

At a crossroads in her life, her relationship has ended, a job recently lost and she is coping with a mother with onset dementia who is becoming a danger to herself. It is the perfect moment for her to throw herself into the mystery of the quilt and reveal the truth behind what happened to the young Maria.

Then there is a journalist Ben, who she’s unsure about when she contacts him, is his interest in her just about the story he is chasing, or might it be something else? When the quilt goes missing, he helps her, though she remains wary.

Royal Secrets, Institutionalising Women, Lives Stolen

This was an enjoyable read of twists and turns, revelations and class punishment, the incarceration of innocent women in order to maintain the reputations of others, and the terrible expendability of babies and illegitimate children, deprived of their identities, heritage and mothers.