Free The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow Page B

was.
    ‘No, Maria, I’m not judging you. I’m smiling because I’m glad you had some fun while you were young.’
    Oh yes, it was fun all right, and I found I could lock away me conscience easily enough. I was already head over heels in love with my beautiful blue-eyed boy, and he was going away for months, perhaps years. Who knew when would we have the chance again?
    Besides, who was I to say no to the future King of England?
    The tape clunks off.

Chapter Six
    London, 2008
    On my first day of joblessness I woke with a new sense of purpose, and wrote a list:
sort out finances & talk to mortgage adviser
write business plan & create website
appointment with bank re loan?
Lewis, James, Suze and Fred lunch dates re interior design contacts.
    I took a long luxurious shower, then pushed aside my city uniform on the wardrobe rail and grabbed my weekend gear: comfortable black skinny jeans, tee-shirt and a hoodie. That’s more like it, I said out loud as if needing to convince myself, this is the upside of being made redundant. I usually spent a good ten minutes in front of the mirror each morning, making sure that the person presented to the world was immaculate. Now, none of that mattered – I could be just me, whoever that was. With a bit of luck I was about to find out.
    So I ended up spending time in front of the mirror anyway, wondering what the new me might look like. Those roots in my hair needed doing, but why go to the expense? Why not allow it to return to its natural mousy blonde? My eyebrows were a bit bushy – but actually I quite liked the slightly fuzzy shape, a relief from those starkly waxed lines.
    Without the weight of mascara on their lashes, my eyes felt lighter and more alert, and appeared to be brighter blue without the carefully applied shadows and highlighter that usually framed them. Okay, my wrinkles were more obvious without foundation, the odd chickenpox scar from long ago more prominent – but I decided there was nothing too scary.
    I straightened my shoulders, looked myself directly in the eye and took a deep breath: this was the new me, the natural, unadorned, take-me-as-you-find-me Caroline: a strong, independent and, yes, about-to-be-successful self-employed interior designer. Yes, that was the plan.
    But it was strange having no job to go to, no appointments to rush between in the usual manic way, no one breathing over my shoulder asking when the report would be ready. My calendar was blank.
    I pushed the living room table over towards the window so that I could have a view of the small park from my new ‘office’, phoned the bank for an appointment with their business adviser, and emailed several friends still working in the interior design field, casually suggesting that we might lunch. I sorted out my filing system, cleaned the flat and made several more cups of coffee.
    When I changed the sheets on the spare bed, I brought the quilt into the living room, hanging it over the back of the sofa. Low sun streamed in, as it always does in winter when the branches of the plane trees outside are bare of leaves. The beams fell onto the quilt, and the silver threads in those silks that Jo had been so excited about seemed to come alive, gleaming in the light.
    I read the little verse again, even though I already knew it by heart. Who had written it, and who was her lost love? How did the maker get hold of those royal silks? How did they know Granny? And was there any connection, as Mum seemed to suggest, with the mental asylum? Then I peered at the appliqué figures for a few moments, willing them to yield up any clues, but the duck and rabbit were stony silent.
    The mysteries were too intriguing to ignore. I added a final bullet point to my list:
Contact journalist to find out about quilt/hospital/ royal connection?
    I was in the supermarket later that afternoon when he phoned.
    ‘Could I speak to Caroline Meadows?’ the man said.
    ‘Who’s that, please?’
    ‘Ben Sweetman, from