Part 7

Colette had not woven the roses, for because of the difficulty in making it, workers usually specialize on the various individual parts composing this extremely popular lace. A second girl had made the flowers, and a third the exquisite open-work details introduced to lighten the whole. Considerable freedom is allowed the lace-worker in the execution of these open-work stitches. If she has talent she may obtain many interesting original results in filling in, for there is apparently no limit to the number of stitches she may employ. In Colette’s little handkerchief square, I discovered miniature marguerites and stars and airy balls. Each group had been made by a specialist (many women have spent their lives in making just tiny stars or wheels), and sent to the convent to be bound together with the leaves and roses into a beautiful whole by the clear mesh that dropt hexagon by hexagon from Colette’s swift needle.

Colette’s neighbor was making the same mesh, but as a background for bobbin-made clusters, sent here from a bobbin-lace village to make the rare Point d’Angleterre, a small quantity of which Kerxken still produces.

In the corner of this class-room were the shelves with the essential skeins of thread; cotton for the Needle Point, linen for the Venise. The linen is more and more difficult to obtain, and since it is hard to handle and breaks easily, has been largely supplanted by cotton thread. There were large cardboard boxes for the drawings and the pricked working patterns; others for the little bobbin-lace roses and leaves and vines that were to be worked into Brussels Point; and still more boxes for the finished meters and insets ready to be sold to the Committee, and later to the dealer who will replace the Committee. While we were examining the boxes a pretty, dark-haired dentellière of about sixteen came in, with work she had finished at home, two handkerchiefs with Brussels Point borders, and two and a half meters of Venise, on which she had worked five and a half months and for which she asked 160 francs, or $40.00.

In the “imitation” room we passed quickly by the lengths of inferior filet and the piles of cheap collars made by men; there was little temptation to linger there. The only defense against that room is more pay for the work across the hall.

We climbed the stairs shivering and looked into the neat little bedrooms with their white board floors, and into the icy chapel where Sœur Robertine declared she could be quite comfortable with only a small black woolen shawl over her shoulders.

We had brought our lunch, but were not allowed to eat it. Sister A., an excellent cook, had prepared hot soup, potatoes and meat, and a dried apple mousse which we persuaded Sœur Robertine to share with us. And after lunch, the orphan and refugee children came in to shake hands, also Janiken, the poor “_idiote_” who is forty-nine years old, but still a child, with a strange, animal-like expression on her face. Sœur Robertine held her hand for us to shake, otherwise little Janiken seemed able to direct her own movements. She smiled and chatted in Flemish, then waddled off quite happy with the candies and cakes we had brought. Janiken spends her days making bead collars and bracelets for the sisters, whom she loves, and when her bead boxes are empty she places them at the foot of the statue at the end of the narrow corridor upstairs, and prays the good Saint Anthony to refill them, that she may weave more necklaces. At night as the sisters pass silently by the statue, they snap the threads of their former gifts, letting the beads shower into the boxes, and in the morning Janiken is happy again.

Sœur Robertine had never ridden in a motor, and when we proposed that she accompany us to the Franciscaine convent at Erembodeghem, not very far away, her eyes shone. And I shall not forget the faces of the others, as after a further bustle of leave-takings and good wishes, they leaned from the green doorway in the rain, clasping their hands and laughing and nodding, while we tucked their beloved sister into our car. Sœur Robertine herself sat silently and ecstatically in a corner, determined to miss no part of this extraordinary experience.

VII

EREMBODEGHEM

_The Queen’s Cloth_

Erembodeghem is a commune of about 6,000 inhabitants, tho the pretty winding street by which we entered, with the picturesque, red-tiled houses clustered irregularly along both sides of it, suggests a smaller village. Nearly all the women in this town, as in Kerxken, make lace, and again it is chiefly Needle Point and Venise. The convent, which furnishes the customary directing and stimulating center, has no superior in the country for its particular laces, unless one grants preference to its own mother house at Opbrakel.

As we entered the courtyard, a group of French soldiers were warming themselves before a fire they had lighted beneath a dripping canvas tent-roof stretched across a corner of the wall. In the dreary rain the fire flaming against the brick wall, and the horizon blue of the uniforms were a cheery greeting. But inside the convent, alas, there was less cheer; indeed, there was the chill of the tomb, no coal for the poor sisters, who were for lack of it unable to conduct the regular school classes. They told us of their distress over the idleness of the children, who had been turned into the streets by the Germans many weeks before, and whom they were not yet able to reassemble. “Their manners are already so bad,” Sister A. said, “that we are ashamed to own them as our pupils.” The Germans left the class-rooms in the familiar condition, and the sisters had no sooner finished patching and disinfecting, than the Italian soldiers were billeted there. They were too loyal to criticise but I suspect that their experiences after the departure of the Italians must have convinced them that, after all, a new army is just another army. The French followed, but they at least were occupying only four class-rooms, and the sisters were trying to be optimistic. “We believe they must be better,” one of them said, with a smile; “however, we shall not know until they are gone.”

“At any rate,” she continued, “our lace-room has not been requisitioned; we have had enough coal to keep a little fire there. During all the four years that work has never stopt.” Since it was Saturday afternoon there were many vacant chairs in the class-room, but still enough girls were present to enable us to judge of the kind of lace school this is.

Little girls between nine and ten, sitting up very straight in their high-backed chairs, were working with swift, steady fingers and already producing a good Venise insertion of a simple leaf pattern. Several of the other girls were busy with the now well-known Venetian Point medallions representing the arms of the Allied nations, and the provinces of Belgium; still others were executing flower details for yard lace. All this Venise they were making with a needle and single linen thread, for this convent works exclusively with linen thread. They were handling the black cloth patterns, eight to ten inches wide, with apparent ease, turning them with almost every stitch. This mere mastery of the pattern is in itself impressive.

In a corner, near one of the great windows overlooking the walled-in winter garden, a slim, darkly clad girl about sixteen was absorbed in pricking a complicated pattern. Sister A. led me a little aside to explain that this was their feeble-minded girl and that tho they could not explain it, she was able to interpret correctly very difficult drawings.

At the Committee Bureau I had seen many of the wonderful cloths made from Venise details from this convent (among them the cloth typifying the burning cities, presented to Mrs. Hoover), but I had never imagined anything so lovely as the exhibit the sisters had been arranging on the long, low table, while we were passing from chair to chair following the magic needles.... We turned to find the separate parts of a banquet cloth to be offered to Queen Elizabeth on her return from exile, assembled for us. Two hundred and twenty details, there were, on which during the darkest days of the war, women had worked with unfaltering faith and love. M. de Rudder, a well-known Belgian artist, had drawn the design for the Lace Committee. The border, edged with ivy, the symbol of endurance, is composed of ferns and wild flowers, eels and sea-weed, suggesting the forests and fields and waters of Belgium. Adjoining them are the coats of arms of destroyed cities, bordered by a band of lilies of the valley, signifying the return of happiness. In the center, the four patron saints of Brussels, Saints Michel and George, and Saints Elizabeth and Gudule, are enwreathed with olive branches. Saint Elizabeth, above the Red Cross, represents the Queen and her devoted service as nurse during the war, while the eight medallions near her carry the names of the Beatitudes. Opposite Saint Elizabeth is Saint George, who represents King Albert. Below him is the Belgian decoration for bravery, and in the surrounding medallions are woven the names of battles won by him. Between Saint Elizabeth and Saint George, are the immortal words spoken by His Majesty as he went from the Chamber, sword in hand, on the 4th of August, 1914: “_J’ai foi dans nos destinées! Un pays qui se défend s’impose au respect de tous, ce pays ne périt pas!_” It is one thing to mention a few of the two hundred and twenty details of this glorious cloth, it is quite another to hold any one of them in one’s hand and realize its perfection, its incredible combination of softness and delicacy and firmness and regularity. The twelve sisters gathered happily about us, as we sat before the table quite breathless over the discovery of one new beauty after another in their truly royal gift.

And then they brought us something much less important, but nevertheless exquisite, the work of Sister S., which they show rarely, a length of Rose Point about four inches wide, and which even the women of the Committee after their long years’ constant experience in lace, said they had never seen surpassed. The linen thread ordinarily used in Venise runs from Number 200 to Number 300. This lace, whose base is formed by an ethereal interlacing of vines and tendrils, is made with Number 2000. One can work on it scarcely more than two or three hours a day, and then only under the best light. Sister S. brought me the magnifying-glass, without which I could not have followed the exquisitely varied points, and lifted the infinitesimal petals of the tiny flowers incrusting the background of interwoven tendrils. In some of these microscopic blooms were as many as four layers of petals. It would be useless to attempt to describe the loveliness that results from the blending of the background of vines and lifted blossoms. I asked what a meter of such lace would bring and learned that it will probably be sold in Paris for 1,000 francs, tho these sisters would be happy to guard it as one of their convent treasures.

We had intended going into some of the neighborhood houses to watch the work of the older women, but it seemed impossible to look at any other lace that day and we said good-by. And while the chauffeur brushed away the small boys clinging to or crawling over the car, we again tucked our sister in, to carry her home to Kerxken; it had been a great day for Sœur Robertine and for us.

VIII

OPBRAKEL

_Mother House of a Famous Lace-making Order_

After Kerxken and Erembodeghem I was not surprized, when inquiring about needle laces further south, to learn that the only school whose work could dispute first place with them was that of the mother house of the same order at Opbrakel. I had come to know that the finest needle laces of Belgium are made in these convents of the Sœurs Franciscaines.

It was a bitter day, but I determined to reach Opbrakel despite shell-pitted roads and rain. I succeeded even in making a short stop on the way at Cruyshautem Convent, famous, too, for its Needle Point, where the sisters would have detained me longer to describe again and again the entry of the American soldiers at 9 o’clock in the morning on All Saints Day—the wonderful American soldiers who had arrived to free them from their oppressors of four years, and who had remained to buy every scrap of lace in the convent, carrying away the address with the promise to send for more.

In my journeying I discovered a pretty way of learning whose army occupied a particular village—I looked for the first small boy to see which soldier’s cap he proudly wore. Thus at Opbrakel, tho it was late afternoon when I arrived, there were children still playing in the street, and the boys jauntily wearing the horizontal blue announced to me that the French were there. These small boys, and later the soldiers themselves, examined my mud-splashed car with much curiosity, as it drew up in front of the convent door.

My visit was quite unannounced, but the sisters held out their hands in welcome, and drew me in out of the rain, speaking, as they did so, words I had almost forgotten, “Hot milk; you must drink a cup of hot milk at once, Madame, and your chauffeur also; this is a cruel day for journeying.” They led me to a little room, where I found another unaccustomed comfort, a tiny fire burning brightly. As I sat before it, sipping the sweet milk, the first I had had since leaving America, I remembered the gratitude of travelers in the middle ages toward the convents and abbeys whose doors they found open. The war had brought a return of many of the difficulties and perils that beset them, with the comfortable hostelries of pre-war days pillaged and ruined, the little restaurants or cafés that could do business filled to overflowing with soldiers (I have spent hours in the wind and rain at night vainly trying to find a bed, or a place for my car), with roads wrecked, neither post nor telegraph, nor train, and natural accompaniment of all this disorganization, the necessity of being ever on guard against thieves—in the midst of conditions like these we can appreciate the meaning of the cheering hospitality the convent offers.

While we sat before the fire the Mother Superior had one of the sisters show me a treasure of the school, a framed exhibit, illustrating in miniature all the processes employed in the making of the needle laces, which they had prepared for the last International Exposition at Brussels. Then she recounted for me a little of the history of her lace-making convent, which celebrates its centenary this year, this free year of 1919. I could imagine what it would have meant to try to be joyful over such an anniversary with the enemy heel still on one’s back.

One hundred years ago the commune of Opbrakel was in such a wretched state of poverty and misery that among its 2,000 inhabitants, 800 were beggars; and as often happened elsewhere during the period of suffering following the Napoleonic wars, the curé of the commune sought to relieve it by founding a convent which should teach the art of lace-making, to furnish a means of earning bread. He called the Franciscaine Sisters who soon had 100 pupils in their lace-classes, and among them a number of boys. From those days to these, lace-making in this convent has never ceased; there are now not more than 125 pupils in the excellent school, but in the homes of the entire region are those who have learned their art there. The sisters taught first, Chantilly (Opbrakel is very near Grammont, the Belgian home of Chantilly), but about fifty years ago changed from bobbin to needle lace, and since about twelve years ago, they have specialized on the particular needle lace, Venetian Point, in which they are unexcelled. Few of the enraptured tourists in Venise realize that the laces they are buying there were very probably made in Flanders!

Important lace schools and work-rooms have from time to time concentrated all their skill on the production of a masterpiece that might represent them to the world and awaken wide interest and approval. We have a long list of such _chefs-d’œuvres_ from the lace-rooms of Belgium, of lovely scarfs and cloths and robes offered to sovereigns or distinguished patrons. And happily during the war the Committee could encourage this practise by giving orders or special “commands” to be executed as gifts for benefactors. Several of these presentation pieces will have enduring value historically as well as artistically.

More than one command fell to the share of Opbrakel, and among others that for a scarf offered to the Queen of Holland in appreciation of her country’s generosity to Belgians within Dutch borders. The dentellières, each proud to be selected for the royal task, worked many months on the countless exquisite needle points in this delicate veil. On the scarf ends they united the arms of Holland and Belgium, engarlanding them with hyacinths and tulips, the Dutch national flowers, and about these in turn they wove lilies of the valley, symbolizing the return of happiness. Below the medallion rest the Belgian provinces, enchained, and above them they represented the children of Holland showering flowers of abundance upon the martyred children of their sister kingdom.

It would have been pleasant to talk of other master-works, but we had already sat too long before the fire and we hurried now to reach the large, airy class-room across the court before dark. When starting on my lace journey, I had been warned that, once I had visited the bobbin-lace work-room with all the picturesqueness of the cushion with its mounds of bobbins and clustered pins, and of the flying fingers and the continuous cadences of the clinking wood, I would find needle-lace classes uninteresting. In the beginning this was true; there was nothing particularly dramatic or stirring in a great room filled with girls and young women holding little black paper patterns in their hands and plying a needle above them. But the more I watched these little patterns and the fingers directing the needle and thread, the more marvelous the accomplishment appeared—cotton and linen so fine that it seemed impossible that any finger should control them—cobwebby, diaphanous meshes, richly petalled tiny flowers, and delicately veined leaves growing beneath just a common needle and a single thread. In the end I looked eagerly for the needle rooms.

And this was the most rewarding one I had yet visited. It happened that the majority of the pupils were busy on the details of a tablecloth recently designed by Madame Allard, in which the linen center is encircled by a family of little beasts as gay as any ever gathered together to cheer a dinner company. I laughed outright, as a little girl, herself laughing, held up an exquisitely worked and most vividly real group of happy ducks floating on a pond. The next showed her enchanting rabbits, another her deer—all along the line they were chuckling over the success of their particular pets. They had captured the sunshine and happy motion of a farm-yard world with just a needle and a single linen thread! Here, as at Erembodeghem, only linen thread is used, because tho it is more difficult to handle, it produces a finer and stronger lace than cotton. After several months (it took six months to execute the first cloth of this design) the details would be assembled and joined by special workers, following the large paper pattern the sisters were now spreading across a table, which had been sent down to Opbrakel from the room of design at Brussels. And the finished cloth, as delightful as an early naive tapestry with its smiling animals, would be sent to the Committee for sale.

Opbrakel stands unquestionably first in Belgium in the production of figures in Point de Venise. During the war, its workers have repeated several times for the Committee their beautiful “Fables de La Fontaine” series of medallions, as well as those which represent so charmingly “Little Red Riding-Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and other much loved fairy-tale figures. These medallions have been sold separately as doilies, or have been combined with Flanders lace or linen in handsome cloths.

It was fast growing dark, and the 125 girls began folding their patterns, and carefully wrapping their delicately pictured little rabbits and ducks to keep them clean till the morrow; maids appeared with dust-pans and brooms, and we gathered up our skirts and stept out into the courtyard. As we crossed it in the dark and the rain it was difficult to refuse the further hospitality of these sisters, who would have kept me for the night.

IX

LIEDEKERKE

_The Last Lace Stronghold of Brabant_

In the court in front of the big brick convent building with its odd little steeple, two sisters, skirts tucked up, and pails swung over their shoulders, Chinese fashion, were about to begin the Saturday scrubbing. Madame Kefer-Mali and I were on our way to Liedekerke, the principal remaining lace center in Brabant, and had stopt in this less important village of Heckelgem for a look at the convent school opened nine years ago.

In the village itself we had found about 150 of the 2,000 inhabitants busy with their needles, for this is distinctly a needle-lace commune, producing a fairly good quality of Venise. Which means that there are as yet no local mills, and tho an adjacent match factory has already attracted a number of Heckelgem girls, most of the women are still content to spend their time making Venise, which they take to the convent, to be sold there to Brussels or other agents.

The convent class-rooms were warm and cheery; fern baskets hung from the ceilings and every window was gay with potted plants. Practically all the village children were gathered inside, and since it was 11 o’clock when we arrived, were happily engaged in drinking their daily Comité National cup of cocoa and in eating the good white biscuit that goes with it. Saturday morning is mending time and on the girls’ desks I saw more of those amazing patchwork socks and stockings, the result of three or four years’ weekly attempts to hold them together.

In the advanced lace class-room, thirty girls, between thirteen and sixteen, were working with cotton thread on Venise insertions and on details for larger pieces. They had come at 8 o’clock that morning, a more humane beginning hour than most schools allow, and would remain as long as there was daylight—looping and weaving with a needle and single thread. I stopt beside Rosalie, who was making a pretty flower detail for a cushion cover. She had begun it five days before and hoped to finish, and receive the seven francs she was allowed for it, that night.