The Foundling by Stacey Halls

Synopsis:

London, 1754.

Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed - by her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess' lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

From the bestselling author of The Familiars, and set against the vibrant backdrop of Georgian London, The Foundling explores families, secrets, class, equality, power and the meaning of motherhood.

I was first interested in this book because of its gorgeous cover. The floral and the lady and her babe in the cage were somehow appealing to me. The design really made me look at this book, and after reading the synopsis, I imagined this to be a thriller, something I really love reading.

The story follows two women, Elizabeth and Alexandra. Both powerful and meaningful names. One means pledged to God, and the other, protector of man. Of course, in the bible context, I’m going to assume ‘man’ refers to mankind, and not the male counterpart of humankind. In a way, their names fit their designation in the story. Elizabeth sees her daughter as a gift from God, but in Alexandra’s eyes, Charlotte is someone she has to protect excessively.

I particularly loved the way both mothers loved the same girl in such different ways. And because of the emotions they are feeling, the way they perceive others are so profoundly different as well.

Elizabeth, having had her child taken away fraudulently, began to see the person who took her daughter as the bad guy. When she finally met Alexandra, she saw how she was extremely cold, strict and unloving. When Alexandra was having a flashback, all Elizabeth see was how dangerous she was to her daughter. Being attacked by a poker had to be traumatizing, especially when your six-year-old daughter is in the vicinity. However, when she finally took her daughter away, she saw all that she thought her daughter would find wanting. Luxury, rest, even dignity, they are all things she never cared much for, but imagined her daughter would care about. Charlotte may well be a child that cares about those things, but I felt that in Elizabeth’s perspective, she saw it with a lot more clarity and intensity then in reality. One such moment would be the shame she saw in Charlotte’s face when she demonstrated relieving her bladder in the alley.

As for Alexandra, she was practically ruled by her fear of intruders. Due to a traumatizing event when she was young, she was deathly afraid of unlocked doors and large crowds. As such, she’s decided to close herself off from the outside world, and restrict her world to her house, and the Foundling Church. When she adopted Charlotte, that was Charlotte’s world as well. What I feel, was that in her guilt for trapping Charlotte in her gilded cage, unable to show her any of the motherly love she had experienced before her tragedy, she began to see hatred and resentment in her daughter’s eyes. While Charlotte may be justified in wanting to explore the outside world, I didn’t think a child could muster up that much bad feelings towards a woman she saw as her mother for years. Despite her failings, Alexandra did provide for and take care of her.

Although I might be entirely wrong on those counts, I’m pretty sure both of these mothers have complicated family ties. Elizabeth’s brother, Ned, confused me the most. He seemed to genuinely care for Elizabeth, and even though she was immensely fond of her brother, she somehow couldn’t stand him as well. Ned killed any affections Elizabeth might have for him when he threatened Charlotte’s life, and Halls showed how a mother would retaliate, even just by not taking any actions to help, when their daughter is endangered.

What I really did not expect from this book is how I expected a more sinister secret underneath all the motherhood and protectiveness. When the synopsis mentioned a past catching up to Alexandra, I honestly thought something bigger would happen. The book turned out great in the end, and I loved every page, but it turned out to be an entirely different type of story than what I originally thought it was.

Halls’ writing is beautiful and descriptive, and she paints a vivid picture for every scene. If an artist ever need to illustrate any scene in the story, they wouldn’t need to put in much work into coming up with the details. I also loved how she doesn’t switch perspective every chapter, but instead switched after every huge event. It was an amazing read, and it got me hooked throughout.

“Mine observed many things about me, but not everything. Like sunlight on a yard, there were some parts always in shadow.”