timid, to do in my twenties. When I returned, I would start building a business plan for the design company I’d always dreamed of setting up, but never had the courage.
Jo had already spent several evenings consoling me about the break-up; unfailing reserves of mutual sympathy have always been the currency of our friendship. Now, she crawled across the floor and climbed onto the sofa, wrapping her arms around me.
‘You’re having a really crap time, but in a few weeks you won’t believe you were saying these things. You’ll get another job, start meeting other people. You’re so talented you could do anything you want.’
‘High-class escort, perhaps?’
‘No, idiot, something in design,’ she laughed. ‘Something you really enjoy, for once, and not just for the money. Plus, there are plenty of men out there for the taking. You’re so funny, and gorgeous with it, you won’t be single for long, I know it.’
I gulped another massive swig of wine. Jo seemed to be on water. ‘But I’ve just taken on the mortgage. How will I ever afford it? I can’t bear to lose this place.’
Russ and I found our airy top floor flat, in a quiet, leafy north London street, two years ago, and I knew from the moment we stepped through the door that this was the one. We’d redecorated in cool monotones of cream, taupe and dove grey, restored the beautiful marble fireplaces and plaster ceiling roses, furnished it with minimalist Scandinavian furniture and spent a fortune on wood flooring and soft, deep carpets.
‘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
