A Long Weekend — Susan Miller

Janet Fraser, a promising young pianist who is having reservations about getting engaged, visits her mother's family home in the Yorkshire dales. She is transported back to the early nineteenth century where her ancestors mistake her for a daughter of the house who had eloped with her drawing master some years previously. Janetta Thornley's ‘reappearance' gets a mixed reception: hostility from her mother, the autocratic Lady Gabriella; ambivalence from her good-looking brother William and resentment from debutante sister Sophie, but teenage Kate is pleased to see her again, as are most of the servants. Janet quickly forms a special friendship with Dorothea, William's unhappy wife.

In order to maintain her charade and a familiar roof over her head, Janet has to cope with a very different lifestyle while remembering two cover stories: that put about by Lady Gabriella to save face and her own invention to account for the missing years. The prodigal daughter is relaunched into local society and blunders through a variety of situations, but negotiating the minefield of Georgian etiquette is less daunting than being expected to ride side-saddle, a skill which she masters with the connivance of some of the servants. The lack of sanitation is a constant trial and medication varies from the surprisingly efficient to the horrific.

Janet gradually adapts to her strange circumstances, but just as she is about to discover the true cause of Dorothea's death, William learns that she is an impostor and he blackmails her into agreeing to marry his sister's original suitor. Mr Wilmer is an unassuming little middle-aged lawyer who has made public his feelings, but are they for Janet or Janetta? The master of the house regards chambermaids as fair game, but his so-called sibling becomes a much more piquant quarry.

On her return to the present, Janet is surprised at how much she misses her Georgian relations but after her experiences with them, she has no doubts about her future priorities.

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The author is a former member of the Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives. She has compiled reference books for the Glasgow & West of Scotland Family History Society and has published articles in genealogical journals. She has always enjoyed classical music, particularly opera. Since childhood, many holidays have been spent with a family in central France, initially with ‘walking water'. Before she was married, she lived in Yorkshire for some years.