Realistic rose and gems on a forearm

The pattern came back from the mill on Tuesday with a note pinned to the selvedge, and I have read it so often the ink has gone soft at the fold. Mr Hallam wants the mandala worked wider, the scallops doubled, and a clear space left at the crown for stones. He says the Duchess will not wear anything that looks like a doily. I told him a doily is only lace that has forgotten where it was going.

I have been drawing from the old Honiton sheets in the back room, the ones Mother kept in the biscuit tin. There is a rose in the corner of the third sheet, pricked so finely you can barely see the holes, and I copied it twice before I understood it was meant to sit against the lace rather than inside it. Set that way, the petals seem to open outward from the pattern's centre like a lamp being turned up slowly.

Mr Hallam sent the garnets up from London on Friday in a box lined with cotton wool. Two of them, cut like little hearts of fire, not the dull dark red we usually get. He held one to the window and said it looked as though it had been dipped in the bottom of a glass of claret. I did not tell him the stones unsettled me a little. They are too bright for the small hours, when the lamps are low and the mill is quiet.

I will send the finished drawing by the Thursday coach. Keep a candle lit in the window for me, and do not let Father near the tin.

Your loving brother, Tom