Matilda Oxley

Matilda Oxley keeps a lace workshop in Stony Croft, in the old parish warden's house. Downstairs, a dim entry hall with an oak chest and the smell of guttered candle wax. Upstairs, under the very roof, stand trestles with bobbin pillows and a sealed, bricked-up fireplace. Matilda never lacks for orders: mourning veils, widow's wraps, edging for church vestments. She works briskly, in silence, and takes payment so quietly it's as if she's asking forgiveness.

The pattern is born on its own. From the bricked-up hearth comes a steady, chilly draft, and in its whistle the lacemaker picks out a count: a click, a skip, another click. To that rhythm her fingers move the wooden bobbins. What will emerge in the cloth she doesn't understand right away, sometimes only after glancing at the customer's face. In a thick book she records every finished piece of lace and the name of the person it was meant for. There are more lines in that notebook than there are parishioners in the local churchyard.

In conversation Matilda is reserved. She answers not the direct question but the hidden worry of her guest. Finishing a sentence, she usually looks not into your eyes but at the candle flame. She doesn't try to frighten anyone and casts no spells: she simply carries on her craft, and the craft knows far more about her than she does herself.