Dear Arachnes, I was surprised to find a section on pillow lace in an old detective story I read this weekend 'For the Defence, Dr Thorndyke'. Dr Thorndyke is an invention of R Austin Freeman mostly in the 20's and 30's. He is a Medico-Legal practitioner and an early forensic scientist, and in a way a successor to Sherlock Holmes. Project Gutenberg Australia has a lot of his stories. They normally take the form of relating a crime, then Dr Thorndyke takes up the legal case and shows forensically how the crime was committed and who did it. In this one the subject is an artist and is trying to avoid a charge of murder complicated by a mistaken identity for his cousin. He's just moved into digs, and has been buying some paints and other painting necessities. It's not a long section, so I'll quote it in full, but it proves crucial to proving his identity later on. It's clear the author had seen lace making and understood it.
Enjoy Louise in murky damp Cambridge, but the willow catkins are out, spring is coming. Having deposited his parcels in his sitting-room, he walked through to the back room, half-kitchen and half-parlour, to report his return and exchange a few-words with his landlady. And here he had a genuine stroke of luck. At intervals, amidst his distractions, he had been trying to think of a subject to fit into the background of his own room. Now, as he opened the door, after a perfunctory tap with his knuckles, behold a subject almost ready made. By the low, small-paned window sat Mrs. Pendlewick in a Windsor arm-chair with a little gate-leg table by her side and a lace pillow on her lap. She looked up with a smile of welcome, viewing him over the tops of her spectacles as he stood in the doorway regarding her with delighted surprise. She made a charming picture. Figure, lighting and accessories made up just such an ensemble as the old "genre" painters would have loved; and Andrew, being a belated survivor of that school, felt a like enthusiasm. For a while he stood, taking in the effect of the group-the old-world figure with its silky-white hair and antique cap, the black pillow with its covering of lace and rows of bobbins, the simple, elegant chair and the ancient table--until the old lady became quite puzzled. "I am taking the liberty of admiring you, Mrs. Pendlewick," he said at length. "Law!" she exclaimed, "I thought I had got beyond that." "But this is a new accomplishment," said he. "I didn't know you were a lace-maker." "New!" she chuckled. "I was a lace-maker before I was eight year old. Had my own pillow and bobbins and used to play at making lace. All the girls did down at my home; began it as child's play, and that's how we learnt. Down where I come from--I'm a Buckinghamshire woman, born and brought up at Wendover--down there you wouldn't meet a woman, no, nor a girl over ten, that couldn't make bone lace. They usually began to learn when they were about four or five." "Why do you call it bone lace?" he asked. "It's on account of these," she explained, indicating the bewildering multitude of little bobbins that dangled by their threads from the edge of the work. "They were mostly made of bone, though sometimes they used horn or hard wood. But bone was the regular thing because it was easy to come by. The lads used to make 'em for their sweethearts; carved 'em out with their pocket knives, they did, and some of them were uncommonly pretty bits of work. There's one that my grandfather made when he was courting my grandmother more than a hundred years ago; and it's as good as new now." She picked out the historic bobbin--a little bone stick elaborately decorated with shallow carving--and held it up proudly for his inspection; and as he examined it she babbled on: "Yes, we're all of a piece, me and my belongings. We are all getting on. This chair that I'm sitting in was made by my Uncle James. He was a chair maker at High Wycombe, and they used to work out in the open beech-woods. And this little table was made by my grandfather--him that made that bobbin. He was a wheelwright, but he used to make furniture in the winter when the wagons was laid up and work was slack." So she rambled on, but not to the hindrance of her work; for, as she talked, her fingers were busy with their task, the right hand managing the pins while the left manipulated the bobbins, and all with an effortless dexterity that was delightful to watch. Nor were her babblings of the old country life in the Vale of Aylesbury without interest; and Andrew, looking on and listening, found himself gathering the sentiment and atmosphere that he hoped presently to express in his picture. After a spell of somewhat one-sided conversation, he ventured cautiously to approach the subject of that picture. But his caution was unnecessary, for Mrs. Pendlewick was all agog to "have her likeness drawn", as she expressed it. "Not but what I should have thought," she remarked, "that you might have found someone better worth drawing. Who wants to look at the likeness of an old woman like me?" "You are too modest, Mrs. Pendlewick," he replied. "You don't appreciate your own beauty. Wait until you see my picture; you'll be surprised to find how handsome you are." - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
