I recently watched a strange, little-seen movie by Alfred Hitchcock called Under Capricorn, a melodramatic costume drama which places Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotton in 1830’s Sidney, Australia. One plot point comes to a head when a servant in Bergman’s mansion has to hand over the keys to the household linen closets and other locked cabinets.

In a tradition that goes back to the seventeenth century, the lady of the house wears a chatelaine at her waist: a gold or silver clasp from which are suspended various items she needs to keep the household running smoothly, with keys of all sizes but also including such items as a small pair of scissors, a pencil, a coin ball or a mirror.

I sometimes wish I could wear a chatelaine to hold all the stuff I need in a day around the cabin. A tiny tube of hand cream, my Blackberry, tweezers. I have always wanted to employ clanky old-fashioned keys in the course of my day.