The Forgotten Seamstress

by Liz Trenow

  ‘I’m so sorry to be such a moan. I really appreciate you coming over.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. You will survive, you know.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, what’s new in the star-studded world of textile conservation?’

  Her face brightened. ‘I’ve had my contract renewed at Kensington Palace. Another two years of security, at least, and I’ve been given some cool projects. There’s a new exhibition planned and they need all hands on deck, which is good news for me.’ She smiled mysteriously. ‘We’re going to need all the money we can get.’

  ‘Go on. What haven’t you told me?’

  ‘Now Mark’s got a permanent job and my contract’s been renewed, we think we can afford it so,’ she paused and lowered her eyes, ‘we’re trying for a baby.’

  ‘Ohmigod, Jo. That’s sooo exciting,’ I squealed. ‘I thought he hated the idea of a buggy in the hallway? I’m so glad he’s come round.’

  Even as I congratulated her I could feel the familiar ache of melancholy in my own belly. Each time a friend announced the ‘big news’, I had to steel myself to enter the baby departments in search of an appropriate gift. It was the tiny Wellington boots that really twisted my heart.

  Jo knew all this, of course. ‘I’m sorry. It’s hard for you, just when you’ve finished with Russ.’

  ‘No worries,’ I said, more breezily than I felt. ‘I’m just thrilled for you. And I’ll be the best babysitter in the world.’

  As I went to put away the glasses, she called from the spare room: ‘I haven’t seen this quilt before. Is it yours?’

  ‘I’ve just brought it back from Mum’s; we found it in the loft at the cottage. It belonged to my granny. Look at this,’ I said, showing her the poem.

  ‘How bizarre. I’ve seen sampler verses incorporated into quilts, but never sewn into the lining like that. Do you know who made it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Mum thinks it might have been made by a friend Granny met in hospital. It’s a bit of a mystery.’

  ‘Let me show you something else. See these?’ She pointed to the background behind the embroidery in the centre panel of the quilt. ‘And this one? Can you see the motifs, the sprays of flowers woven into the brocade?’

  I peered more closely.

  ‘I’m not certain, but it reminds me of something I read recently, about the May Silks,’ she said, stroking the fabric with a reverent fingertip.

  ‘“May Silks”?’

  ‘They were designs created for the royal family around the turn of the twentieth century – George and Mary, that lot. Mary was particularly keen to support British designers and manufacturers and these designs were commissioned from a London studio run by a man called Arthur Silver. They were quite famous in their time.’

  She handed me a tiny brass magnifying glass. ‘Take a look. You can see the rose, thistle and chain of shamrocks – symbols for the nations of the United Kingdom.’

  ‘What about the Welsh daffodils – or is it leeks?’

  ‘These flowers in the centre look a bit like daffodils, it’s hard to tell. But more important, can you see those silver threads? Isn’t it extraordinary?’

  Looking closer, I could see what she was talking about. The pale cream silk seemed to have metal threads running through it, and woven into it were delicate designs of flowers and leaves, linked together as a garland.

  ‘Raise-a-fortune-at-Sotheby’s extraordinary?’

  ‘It won’t pay off your mortgage,’ she laughed. ‘But it would be really interesting from a historical perspective.’ She took back the magnifying glass and ranged over other parts of the quilt. ‘Quite apart from the interesting fabrics, the stitching is amazing. I expect you’ve noticed?’ She pointed to the maze design, a double row in the finest of chain stitches, perfectly even throughout its complex twisting pattern. ‘And the appliqué stitches are so tiny. I’ve never seen such neat needlework. Whoever made it was a brilliant seamstress,’ she said, straightening her back. ‘Was it your granny, you said?’

  ‘Granny did dressmaking but we never saw her doing embroidery. Mum thinks it might have been made by a friend of hers.’

  ‘Whoever it was, I’d love to know how they got hold of those fabrics. They were unique and very closely guarded because they were only to be used by the queen. Did she have anything to do with the royal family?’

  I shook my head. Granny was always rather anti-establishment and certainly no royalist. She’d always been angry about the hardship my grandfather had endured, fighting in the First World War. ‘Lions led by donkeys’, I’d heard her say once and, when I asked what it meant, she explained that the generals leading the war were upper-class twits who had no idea what it was like for what she called the ‘cannon fodder’ in the trenches.

  ‘You mentioned a hospital?’

  ‘She was a patient at a mental hospital for a short time, probably just after the war. The only thing Mum can remember is that the quilt is somehow connected to the hospital, or perhaps someone she met there.’

  ‘I wonder whether the hospital had a royal connection, perhaps, or a link with the factory that wove the silk?’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ I turned on my laptop and searched for ‘mental hospital, Eastchester’. Almost at once an archive site came up: A History of Helena Hall. ‘This must be it!’

  Jo peered over my shoulder as we read:

  This website is dedicated to the doctors, nurses, consultants and other staff who worked at Helena Hall Mental Hospital, as well as the many thousands of patients who were cared for there during its 84 years of serving the community.

  The hospital, first named the Helena Hall Asylum, was opened to patients in 1913. At its peak it housed over 1800 patients, as well as medical and academic staff. The site demonstrates the changing approach of asylum layout through the early part of the 20th century, incorporating large ward-style buildings typical of the echelon style, yet having outlying villas typical of the colonial style.

  The hospital began to release patients into the community in the 1970s and finally closed its doors in 1997. Since then the building has suffered from a number of arson attacks, especially on the main hall and the superintendent’s house. The site is to be regenerated, with the main administration building and wards being restored and converted to housing.

  In the grainy black and white photographs, Helena Hall looked for all the world like a well-staffed stately home. Groups of pin-neat nurses posed proudly on the steps in front of a grand entrance with pillars on either side, and gardeners in three-piece tweed suits worked among meticulously-manicured lawns and precision-edged flower beds. But there was also a harsher reality: shots of long, empty wards furnished with plain white iron bedsteads ranged on either side in military rows, bewildered women patients in baggy dresses grinning toothlessly at the camera and men with ravaged faces and slumped shoulders blinking into the sunshine from a garden bench.

  ‘Jeez, look at this.’ Jo pointed to a photograph of nurses and doctors gathered by a bedside, with an alarming-looking machine sprouting wires towards an invisible patient.

  ‘Looks like ECT,’ I said, shivering at the thought that Granny might have endured such treatments.

  A section on ‘Patient Life’ showed more recent, reassuring scenes: colour photographs of dances in the Great Hall, an arch-roofed affair decorated in blue and gold, hung with chandeliers with a large stage at one end bordered with ruby-red velvet curtains. Smiling people played cricket, badminton, tennis and bowls, and interior shots featured spacious rooms with gleaming parquet flooring, Persian rugs and comfortable three-piece suites. In one of the photos, entitled Ladies’ Needlework Room, women sat at tables in a sunny room working on embroidery and knitting.

  ‘Is it patchwork that lady’s sewing, do you think?’

  I squinted closer at the screen. ‘Could be, it’s hard to tell. Can’t recognise anyone.’ The faces were largely concealed and certainly none looked anything like my grandmother.

 
; It seemed that controversy over closure of the place had been raging for several decades, and future development plans were still keeping the local newspaper in front page headlines. The most contentious issue was the planned demolition of the Great Hall, which had been in use by local amateur dramatic groups and choral societies long after the hospital wards had closed. Many of the articles were by-lined: ‘Our chief reporter, Ben Sweetman.’

  ‘This guy seems to be a bit of an expert,’ Jo said. ‘He might be able to tell you whether the place had any royal links, or put you in touch with someone who might know, someone who used to work there, perhaps?’

  ‘You think it’s really that important to find out?’

  ‘A family heirloom with what looks like unique royal silk in it? It’s amazing. It’s up to you, of course but, whatever you decide, I’d really like to show it to my curator.’

  ‘The head of royal costumes? I thought you told me she was a dragon.’

  ‘She is, but I’ve warmed to her a bit since she renewed my contract.’ Jo checked her phone and yawned. ‘Ugh. It’s already past one and I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you so much for coming over. I feel a lot better.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, you know,’ she said, sweetly. ‘This could really be the start of something exciting.’

  ‘Finding the quilt, you mean?’ I said, momentarily misunderstanding her.

  ‘That too,’ she laughed. ‘What I really meant was you could have a whole new career ahead of you. Move over Moschino and Stefanidis, Meadows is on your tail.’

  ‘I’m more excited about your new venture.’ I gestured towards her stomach.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath. It’s early days,’ she said, as we hugged goodnight.

  My sleep was threadbare that night, like cheap curtains letting in too much light, as my mind tried to make sense of the events of the past couple of days. Despite the shock of being made redundant, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of anticipation and elation. Jo was right: this could be the start of an exciting new phase of my life, an opportunity to do something completely different.

  I dozed briefly and then, in my half-awake state, from the deepest part of my subconscious, came a powerful memory. I must have been about four years old, staying the night at Granny’s house and sleeping in the spare room in the big bed with the shiny brass bobbles at each corner. It was so wide that I could easily fit into it sideways, and so high off the floor that I needed a stool to help me clamber onto it, like a miniature mountaineer. Her house always seemed enormous, especially in contrast with the low ceilings and doorways of my parents’ cottage.

  The quilt was spread across the bed and, that night, instead of reading a bedtime story, she told me all about how patchwork was made from scraps of material sewn together in many different ways to make beautiful patterns, sometimes by people so poor they couldn’t afford proper blankets or, more often, by people who just enjoyed sewing something beautiful. She told me that some quilts were made to mark an occasion, like the birth of a baby, a wedding or a coronation (I wasn’t sure what that was, but didn’t like to interrupt), or in memory of friends.

  As she talked, I traced my finger over strips and squares and triangles of fabric. Some were so smooth to the touch it was like brushing my own skin, but others were rough and catchy. Some seemed to glitter like jewels, the patterns pulsing almost as though they were alive, the threads shimmering as they caught the light.

  She showed me how the quilt had been designed as a series of squares, each one larger than the last, like a painting within a painting within yet another painting, each one framing the one inside, and each one so different from the next, in the complexity of its patterns and colours, and the types of fabrics used. We wondered, together, how many tiny scraps of material had been used to make the quilt and I tried counting them, but gave up at twenty, the limit of my numbers. Then she suggested that we play a game of ‘match the scraps’, discovering that a section of triangles near the head of the bed was repeated at the other end, and the row of printed cottons sewn into squares were in the same order in the opposite corner.

  The design of the outer panels was just shapes and colours, as far as I could see, sometimes in patterns like sticks or steps, with what looked like rising suns along the sides and ends. I liked to run my fingers along the curly pattern of embroidered stitches in the central panel, imagining myself to be in a maze of tall hedges.

  But it was the panel of appliqué figures that most intrigued me. In a row along the top was a duck, an apple, a violin, a green leaf and a dragon with fiery flames coming out of its mouth and, at the bottom, another row with a mouse, an acorn, a rabbit, a lily-like flower, and an anchor.

  ‘Why is the duck trying to eat the apple?’ I asked.

  Granny chuckled in that easy way that always made me feel safe. ‘Have you ever watched a duck trying to eat an apple? They can’t pierce the skin with their round beaks, so the apple keeps running away.’ She mimicked the action with her hands, the fingers of one bent over the thumb like a bird’s bill, the other a round fist in the shape of an apple. ‘They have to wait until another bird with a sharp beak has cut into the apple, then they can eat it.’

  I pointed to the dragon at the end of the row. ‘Why’s he got flames coming out of his mouth?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s trying to scare away the duck so he can eat the apple.’

  I’d chattered on brightly, desperate to prolong the conversation and postpone the inevitable lights out: ‘Mummy says I can have a real-life rabbit, like this one, when I am a bit older.’

  ‘That’s for her to decide, my little Caroline,’ she said. ‘Now it is time for sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day. Someone special is coming to meet you.’

  In the middle of the night I sat up in bed and tried to write down as much of that memory as I could. Some details were still clear as a spring day, but there was something else I couldn’t quite grasp, a foggy incompleteness, as if my mind associated something important with that moment, but which was long since too deeply buried to bring back to the surface.

  Chapter Five

  Cassette 2, side 1

  Is that thingy working again?

  The clink of a cup being placed into its saucer.

  That was a nice cuppa, thank you dearie. Much needed. So where was I?

  ‘You were going to alter the prince’s breeches …’

  That smoky chuckle again, rattling in her chest and catching her throat till it becomes a full-blown coughing fit. She struggles to regain her breath.

  It do sound a bit unlikely, don’t it, when you say it out loud like that? It’s no wonder they thought I was making it up. Most of ’em didn’t believe me, you see. And why would they, when they was surrounded by crazy women with all kinds of weird imaginings? There was Ada, for example, who believed she was the pregnant Virgin Mary and used to stick a pillow up her dress whenever she got the chance. They’d tell her off too, just like they did with me. ‘Stop putting on airs,’ they’d say. The psychiatrist was the worst, sitting there like a pudding with that question-mark face on him. ‘This is in your imagination, dear,’ he’d say to me. ‘None of it is real and the sooner you understand that the sooner we’ll be able to release you.’

  Then there was poor old Winnie, who got locked up that many times for climbing into bed with other women and stealing food off other people’s plates. She always claimed it was the voices telling her to do it, but they never believed her, neither. Well, I’d try to argue back like Winnie, of course, but after a while I gave up trying to prove that what I was telling them was the truth. What was the point? In the end I figured it was best to keep quiet and let them think it’d had all been in my imagination.

  But if you are happy to hear me out, I’ll carry on.

  ‘Please do. That’s what I am here for. When you’re ready. The prince’s breeches …’

  Ah yes. Hrrrm. Well, I don’t know what I imagined a royal bedchamber to be like, but that room wa
s so enormous if there hadn’t been a carpet on the floor I’d have taken it for a ballroom. Besides, there was no bed – must be next door, I thought to meself. On the far side was a person preening himself in front of a long mirror dressed in what I took to be a pantomime outfit – not that I’d seen a pantomime in me life, you understand, but I’d seen the posters outside the music halls. He had white satin breeches with great rosettes at each knee, with a doublet which barely came down to his thighs, and a coat and cape in purple velvet with furry trimmings – I later found out it was called ermine – and a floppy velvet hat on his head.

  ‘At last, Finch, you’re back,’ the prince said, and as he turned to us his face twisted into an angry frown. Finch bowed and I made my best curtsey. I’d been practising since last time.

  ‘This is Miss Romano, Your Highness, the best seamstress in the palace, come to make the alterations you require,’ said Finch in his oily voice, making me shimmer inside at the compliment.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the prince, looking at me so curiously I began to wonder whether I’d put my apron on back to front. I kept my eyes fixed to the ground as I’d been told, but through my eyelashes I could see that the frown had been replaced with a teasing smile.

  ‘Your curtsey is much improved since we last met, Miss Romano,’ he said. ‘I only hope your needlework skills are as good.’

  He smiled at me then, that smile that seemed to light up the room, just like he did that day when I’d botched my first attempt at a curtsey. I could feel my cheeks burning and my heart begin to beat a little faster just recalling that moment, and realising that he, too, remembered it.

  ‘Now sir,’ said Finch, all brisk and business-like. ‘Perhaps you could describe to Miss Romano the work you would like her to undertake?’

  ‘These bloody breeches,’ the prince grumbled, and he pulled out the sides of them below the doublet so that they stuck out like angels’ wings either side of his thighs. ‘They’re like something a ruddy ballet dancer would wear. There’s not much we can do about the rest of this preposterous rig, but at the very least I want these taken in. Not too tight, mind.’