A Surprise Guest at Dinner

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Tonight however we have headed east of Cavendish Mews, down through St James’, past Trafalgar Square and down The Strand to one of London’s most luxurious and fashionable hotels, The Savoy*, where, surrounded by mahogany and rich red velvet, gilded paintings and extravagant floral displays, Lettice is having dinner with the son of the Duke of Walmsford, Selwyn Spencely to help celebrate his birthday. The pair have made valiant attempts to pursue a romantic relationship since meeting at Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie’s, Hunt Ball. Yet things haven’t been easy, their relationship moving in fits and starts, partially due to the invisible, yet very strong influence of Selwyn’s mother, Lady Zinnia, the current Duchess of Walmsford. Although Lettice has no solid proof of it, she is quite sure that Lady Zinnia does not think her a suitable match for her eldest son and heir. From what she has been told, Lettice also believes that Lady Zinnia has tried matchmaking Selwyn unsuccessfully with his cousin Pamela Fox-Chavers. In an effort to prove that they are serious about being together, Selwyn suggested at a dinner in the self-same Savoy dining room a few months ago, that be seen together about town, and the best way to do that is to be seen at the functions and places that will be popular because they are part of the London Season. Taking that approach, the pair have discarded discretion, and have been seen together at many different occasions and their photograph has graced the society pages of all the London newspapers time and time again.

 

Lettice strides with the assured footsteps of a viscount’s daughter as she walks beneath the grand new Art Deco portico of the Savoy and the front doors are opened for her by liveried doormen. She still gets a thrill at being so open about her relationship with Selwyn amidst all the fashionable people populating the Savoy dining room, especially after the pair have been very discreet about their relationship for the past year.

 

Lettice is ushered into the grand dining room of the Savoy, a space brilliantly illuminated by dozens of glittering electrified chandeliers cascading down like fountains from the high ceiling above. Beneath the sparkling light, men in white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels and bugle bead embroidered frocks are guided through the cavernous dining room where they are seated in high backed mahogany and red velvet chairs around tables dressed in crisp white tablecloths and set with sparkling silver and gilt china. The large room is very heavily populated with theatre patrons enjoying a meal before a show and London society out for an evening. The space is full of vociferous conversation, boisterous laughter, the clink of glasses and the scrape of cutlery against crockery as the diners enjoy the magnificent repast served to them from the hotel’s famous kitchens. Above it all, the notes of the latest dance music from the band can be heard as they entertain diners and dancers who fill the parquet dance floor.

 

A smartly uniformed waiter escorts Lettice to a table for two in the midst of the grand dining salon, but Lettice stops dead in her tracks on the luxurious Axminister carpet when she sees someone other than Selwyn awaiting for her at the white linen covered table.

 

“Surprise.” a cool female voice enunciates, the single word lacking the usual joyful lilt when spoken. “Miss Chetwynd, we finally meet.”

 

Seated at the table is a figure Lettice recognises not only from old editions of her mother’s copies of The Lady** and Horse and Hound***, but from a more recent social engagement, when she attended the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show**** in May. Her pale white face and calculating dark eyes appraise Lettice coldly as she stands, frozen to the floor.

 

“Lady Zinnia!” Lettice gasps with an involuntary shiver, before quickly recovering her manners and dropping an elegant curtsey. “Your Grace.”

 

“How very clever of you to recognise me, my dear.” Lady Zinnia replies with a proud smile that bears no warmth towards Lettice in it. “Please, do join me, won’t you? I was just arranging for some caviar to be served upon your arrival. You can serve the caviar now that my guest is here.”

 

“Very good, Your Grace.” the waiter answers with deference.

 

As Lettice allows herself, as if sleepwalking, to take her place adjunct to the Duchess of Walmsford with the assistance of the waiter withdrawing and pushing in her chair for her, she takes in the mature woman’s elegant figure. Dressed in a strikingly simple black evening gown adorned with shimmering black bugle beads with satin and net sleeves, her only jewellery is a long rope of perfect white pearls. Her careful choice of a lack of adornment only serves to draw attention to her glacially beautiful features. Her skin, pale and creamy, is flawless and her cheekbones are high. Her dark wavy cascades of hair only betrays her maturity by way of a single streak of white shooting from her temple, but even this is strikingly elegant as it leaves a silvery trail as it disappears into the rest of her almost blue black tresses. Her dark sloe blue eyes pierce Lettice to the core.

 

“You know, you’re even more beautiful in the flesh than you are in the newspapers my dear Miss Chetwynd,” begins Lady Zinnia. “Although I can still see beneath that polished, cosmopolitan chic exterior of yours, the wild bucolic child of the counties who dragged my son through the muddy hedgerows back before the war.”

 

“And I can still see the angry mother that bundled Selwyn away.” replies Lettice.

 

“Touché, my dear.” Lady Zinnia says with a slight smile curling up the corners of her thin lips. “I’m pleased that I left such a lasting impression upon you.”

 

“I was expecting to have dinner with Selwyn this evening, Your Grace.” Lettice says, deciding that there is no point in bartering barbs thinly disguised as pleasantries with the hostile duchess.

 

“Oh, I know you were, Miss Chetwynd, but I’m afraid that there was a slight change of plans.” Lady Zinnia answers mysteriously. “Oh, and I think we can dispense with the formalities. Lady Zinnia will be quite satisfactory.”

 

“A change of plans, Your Gr… Lady Zinnia?”

 

“Yes,” She chuckles quietly as she reaches down into her lap below the linen tablecloth and fumbles about for something. “So I will have to do, I’m afraid.” She withdraws a Moroccan leather case with her initials tooled on its front in ornate gilded lettering. “I know you don’t partake, but do you mind if I smoke, Miss Chetwynd?” She depresses a clasp in the side and it opens to reveal a full deck of thin white cigarettes. “It’s not so much of a taboo as it once was for a woman to smoke in public.”

 

“Feel free to catch on fire, Lady Zinnia.” Lettice replies as the older woman withdraws a silver lighter from the clutch purse she must have on her lap.

 

“Oh how deliciously droll, my dear Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia replies, apparently unruffled by Lettice’s own hostile barb. “Did you read that line in Punch****?”

 

“Where is Selwyn, Lady Zinnia?” Lettice asks, leaning forward, unable to keep the vehemence out of her voice.

 

“I’m afraid that my son,” She emphasises the last two words with heavy gravitas. “Had to go away quite suddenly, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia screws a cigarette in an unconcerned fashion into a small amber holder with a gold end.

 

“Go away?”

 

“Yes, Miss Chetwynd.” She looks directly at Lettice with her piercing stare, as if she were pinning a delicate butterfly to a mounting board with a sharp pin. “He was suddenly offered an opportunity to showcase his architectural panache in a place far more accepting of this preferred new modernist style he favours than London ever will.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Durban.” Lady Zinnia answers matter-of-factly before placing the cigarette holder to her lips and lighting the cigarette dangling from it with her silver lighter.

 

“Durban!” Lettice gasps. “As in, South Africa?”

 

“I’m glad to see you know your geography, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia says as she withdraws the cigarette holder from her lips and exhales an elegant plume of acrid silver grey smoke which tumbles out over itself. “Your father didn’t waste the money he spent on your expensive education.” She sighs with boredom. “Yes, Durban in South Africa.”

 

“But he didn’t indicate any of this to me.” Lettice mutters in disbelief.

 

“Oh, it was very sudden, Miss Chetwynd, and he hadn’t long to make up his mind.” the Duchess replies cooly. “As I indicated, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they seldom come around, as I’m sure you know only too well yourself, Miss Chetwynd, being the successful young interior designer that you are.”

 

Lettice silently presses the book of architecture sitting on the chair at her side that she bought at Mayhew’s****** just a few weeks ago for Selwyn for his birthday, wrapped in bright paper and tied with a gayly coloured ribbon by herself.

 

“He really had no choice but to leap at the chance.” continues Lady Zinnia.

 

“He would never have gone without saying goodbye to me first.” Lettice insists.

 

“You’d be amazed what I can make people do, Miss Chetywnd.” Lady Zinnia replies threateningly and then takes another drag on her cigarette, before blowing out a fresh plume of smoke. “Even my own beloved son.”

 

“You?” Lettice’s eyes, glistening with tears that threaten to burst forth, growing wide in shock. “You did this?”

 

“Well, let’s be honest, shall we? I really had no choice, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia replies. “No doubt you will despise me for it, but when you reach my age, my dear, you realise that you cannot be friends with everyone in this life. Besides,” she goes on, taking another drag on her cigarette, the paper crackling slightly as her cheeks draw inwards. “You cannot blame me entirely, when you yourself are at least partially to blame for this, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Me?” Lettice splutters hotly, her dainty hands clenching in anger at the older woman’s accusation. “How do you come to that conclusion?”

 

“Well, if you hadn’t blundered blithely into my son’s life, spoiling all my well laid plans,” Her dark eyes widen, increasing her look of vehemence towards Lettice. “There would be no need for him to go, now would there, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“Durban. Durban!” Lettice keeps repeating hollowly.

 

“Yes, it’s rather a lovely place: beautiful sunny weather this time of year, although it a little out of the way, I must confess.” Lady Zinnia smiles at her own harsh amusement. “Perhaps when you one day get married, your husband will take you there for your honeymoon.”

 

Lettice looks with vehemence across the table at her companion, her view of her features slightly blurred by the tears in her eyes. “Yes, Selwyn can show me the buildings he designed during his stay there.” she replies with determination.

 

“Bravo, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia rests her almost spent cigarette in the black marble ashtray she has been provided with by the Savoy staff and quietly slowly claps her hands, her white elbow length gloves muffling the sound. “Such spirited words. I must admire your pluck. No wonder my dear Selwyn is attracted to you. He is determined to create his own world, against social conventions too.”

 

Just at that moment, two waiters approach their table. One carries a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne and two long crystal champagne flutes, whilst the other bears an ornate silver tray upon which stand a fan of biscuits, a plate of lemon slices and a bowl of glistening, jewel like caviar.

 

“Shall I pour, Your Grace?” the waiter with the champagne asks as he places the ice bucket on the edge of the table.

 

“Oh yes, please do!” enthuses Lady Zinnia jovially. “We are in a celebratory mood tonight, aren’t we Miss Chetwynd?” She does not even bother to look at Lettice as she speaks, and Lettice does not reply as her head sinks.

 

“May I be so bold as to ask what Your Grace is celebrating?” the waiter asks politely.

 

“Indeed you may,” replies Lady Zinnia. “My son is going to Durban for a year to design beautiful homes for South African families. He set sail this morning for Cape Town, and we are wishing him every success.”

 

“Congratulations to His Grace, Your Grace.” the waiter says as the cork in the champagne bottle pops and he pours sparkling golden effervescent champagne into the two glasses.

 

“Thank you!” Lady Zinnia replies, taking up her glass. “Well, Miss Chetwynd, shall we toast Selwyn’s success?”

 

She holds her glass up, and for appearance’s sake before the two waiters and the other guests of the Savoy dining room surreptitiously watching them from the nearby tables, Lettice picks up her own glass and connects it with the Duchess’, but she does not smile as she does so.

 

“Well, I don’t know about you, Miss Chetwynd, but I’m famished.”

 

Lady Zinnia proceeds to select a biscuit which she places on her gilt edged white plate. She places a small scoop of sticky black caviar on it and tops it with a thin slice of lemon. Lettice does the same, but unlike Lady Zinnia, she does not attempt to eat anything on her plate.

 

Once the pair of waiters have retreated, Lettice turns back to Lady Zinnia and asks, “Why do you dislike me so as a prospective wife for your son, Lady Zinnia?” She shakes her head. “I make him happy. He makes me happy. I don’t understand.”

 

“No,” the duchess releases a bitter chuckle. “I don’t suppose you do.”

 

“What’s wrong with me? I come from a good family. My father’s estate is still quite successful. Unlike many other estates, Glynes is still turning a profit year on year. I’m well educated, like you are yourself.”

 

“I don’t think you are entirely unsuitable, Miss Chetwynd,” Lady Zinnia concedes, eyeing her young companion with a fresh look of consideration. “Although I would prefer Selwyn to pick a girl from a more notable linage.”

 

“We can trace our lineage back to Tudor times.”

 

“And mine can be traced back to the Norman Conquest.”

 

“Then why did you send him to my mother’s Hunt Ball in the first place, Lady Zinnia?”

 

“Well, I only sent Selwyn as my emissary to support dear Sadie. I must confess that I never really had a lot of time for your mother. I’d hardly call her a friend: more of a polite acquaintance. She prattles on, like so many other women of our generation, about pointless, meaningless things which I find fearfully tiresome.” She sighs. “Ahhh… but I do have time for your father. He was always very witty and he believed in the emancipation of women, a cause we had in common. He wasted his intelligence on someone as blinkered and old fashioned like your mother,” She sighs again. “However, that was the decision he made. So, when Sadie sent an invitation to her first Hunt Ball since before the war, I didn’t want to attend myself and be stuck with her idle gossip, but I did want to support her in some way, on account of your dear father, so I sent Selwyn instead. I didn’t realise that she was using the occasion to attempt to find you a husband.” She pauses and takes a dainty bite out of the caviar covered biscuit. “If I had known, I would never have sent Selwyn. I have my own plans for him.”

 

“Pamela?” Lettice asks quietly.

 

“Yes. Selwyn told me that he had shared with you the plans that his Uncle Bertrand and I had made to match Pamela and him, thus uniting our two great families.”

 

“Selwyn will never marry her, Lady Zinnia. He doesn’t love her.” Lettice hisses quietly.

 

“Temper, temper, Miss Chetwynd.” Lady Zinnia cautions in reply. “As I said before, you would be amazed what I have made people do.”

 

“And Pamela doesn’t love him either.” adds Lettice.

 

“And that is a problem, even I must admit to. One reluctant party is one thing, but two is quite another.”

 

“She’s met a very nice banker’s son.”

 

“Yes, I know, my dear - Jonty Knollys.”

 

Lettice laughs bitterly. “Of course you know. You seem to have spies everywhere.”

 

Ignoring her remark, Lady Zinnia carries on, “So you see my dear Miss Chetwynd, I do not have anything against you perse, but you have been rather a fly in Bertrand’s and my ointment. When I saw you with your friend at the Great Spring Show, I knew you were going to be trouble, and when Bertrand told me that he and Rosamund met you at the Henley Regatta, and Rosamund told me that she had observed that there were little intimacies exchanged between the two of you, I knew that with Pamela taking an interest in young Mr. Knollys and Bertrand willing to break his and my long laid plans because Knollys is equally as wealthy as the Spencelys are, I had to step in to separate you two.”

 

“But why, Lady Zinnia?”

 

“As I said, I would prefer Selwyn to make a more advantageous match with a girl from a family not unlike that with the lineage and solid financial background of the Spencelys. Mr. Knollys may not have the lineage, but he does have the money to support Pamela handsomely, and she will cultivate enough social connections that people will overlook her husband’s lack of them. However, I am not without some understanding of the human heart, and I do admire a woman with spirit who is well educated and can stand her own ground, so I made a pact with Selwyn.”

 

“A pact?”

 

“Yes. I told him that if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with you, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about you as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and I planned. If however, he still feels the same way about you when he returns, I agreed that I would concede and will allow him to marry you.”

 

“But if you knew that Lord Fox-Chavers was wavering towards agreeing to a match between Jonty Knollys and Pamela…”

 

“Aha, but Selwyn doesn’t, and now that he has made this agreement with me, even if you wrote to him, he will not break our pact and he won’t read your letters. He gave me his solemn promise, and he forfeits his right to marry you if he breaks it. Besides, I have made Bertrand make the same pact with Pamela.”

 

Lettice shakes her head in disbelief at what Lady Zinnia is saying between mouthfuls of caviar. “Why have you done this? All you are doing is making Selwyn, Pamela, Jonty and I miserable.” Lettice finally asks in exasperation. “If you love Selwyn, if you don’t really dislike me, why are you putting the pair of us through such pain unless you are an exceedingly perverse individual? I don’t understand your motives.”

 

“Perhaps I am perverse.” chortles Lady Zinnia. “I must confess, I actually quite enjoy being a little perverse. It’s really quite simple my dear Miss Chetwynd, I don’t want my son marrying an infatuation. I nearly made the same mistake and married for love, and I can tell you that if I had, I would not be in as advantageous a position socially or financially today. I want Selwyn to have a clear head before he proposes marriage, and I want him to follow the course I have firmly had set out for the last twenty years. I cannot let something as irritating as the first flushes of young love ruin my well laid plans.” She takes another bite of her caviar and after finishing her mouthful she continues, “Rest assured Miss Chetwynd that however perverse you may think me, I am as much a woman of my word as my son is of his. If he comes back from Durban in a year and he tells me that he still loves you as deeply and passionately that he wants to marry you, I shan’t stand in his way.” She takes out another cigarette from her case and screws it into her cigarette holder. “However, a year is an eternity for the flames of love, however strong you may think they are. A year is more than adequate time for it to be snuffed out and extinguished.” She smiles meanly as she lights her cigarette. Blowing out another plume of cascading grey smoke she concludes, “Don’t imagine for one moment that Selwyn will want to marry you upon his return. He will be a changed man: changed for the better I hope, and free of the shackles of foolish youthful love.” She spits the last word like it is something distasteful. “If I were you, I’d seek another suitor to marry you within the next year. It will help you save face and avoid unnecessary embarrassment.”

 

Lettice feels the grand Savoy dining room swimming about her as she tried to take in everything Lady Zinnia says. Without even saying a word in goodbye, she manages to raise herself out of her seat and begins to wend her way between the tables of diners, some of whom notice her elegant figure as she slips silently, unsteadily past. Never once does she look back. Never once does she allow her emotions to break free as her footsteps quicken, as she pushes more urgently past the elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen milling about the room. It is only when, after what feels like a lifetime, she reaches the portico of the Savoy and she feels the cool air of the London evening on her cheeks that she allows the tears to fall, and down they cascade, like a dam that burst its banks, in an endless pair of rivulets.

 

*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

 

***Horse and Hound is the oldest equestrian weekly magazine of the United Kingdom. Its first edition was published in 1884. The magazine contains horse industry news, reports from equestrian events, veterinary advice about caring for horses, and horses for sale.

 

****May 20 1913 saw the first Royal Horticultural Society flower show at Chelsea. What we know today as the Chelsea Flower Show was originally known as the Great Spring Show. The first shows were three day events held within a single marquee. The King and Queen did not attend in 1913, but the King's Mother, Queen Alexandra, attended with two of her children. The only garden to win a gold medal before the war was also in 1913 and was awarded to a rock garden created by John Wood of Boston Spa. In 1919, the Government demanded that the Royal Horticultural Society pay an entertainment tax for the show – with resources already strained, it threatened the future of the Chelsea Flower Show. Thankfully, this was wavered once the Royal Horticultural Society convinced the Government that the show had educational benefit and in 1920 a special tent was erected to house scientific exhibits. Whilst the original shows were housed within one tent, the provision of tents increased after the Great War ended. A tent for roses appeared and between 1920 and 1934, there was a tent for pictures, scientific exhibits and displays of garden design. Society garden parties began to be held, and soon the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show became a fixture of the London social calendar in May, attended by society ladies and their debutante daughters, the occasion used to parade the latter by the former. The Chelsea Flower Show, though not so exclusive today, is still a part of the London Season.

 

*****Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. From 1850, Sir John Tenniel (most famous for his illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”, was the chief cartoon artist at the magazine for over fifty years. After the 1940s, when its circulation peaked, it went into a long decline, finally closing in 1992. It was revived in 1996, but closed again in 2002.

 

******A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau:

 

The caviar petit fours and the silver tray of biscuits have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The bowl of caviar and the two champagne flutes comes from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The two slightly scalloped white gilt plates and the wonderful creamy white roses in the vase on the table come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The cutlery and the lemon I acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The lemon slices I acquired through an online miniature stockist of miniatures on E-Bay. The silver champagne cooler on the table is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of champagne itself is hand made from glass and is an artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The bottle is De Rochegré champagne, identified by the careful attention paid to recreating the label in 1:12 scale.

 

The two red velvet upholstered high back chairs I have had since I was six years old. They were a birthday present given to me by my grandparents.

 

The painting in the background in its gilded frame is a 1:12 artisan piece made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.

 

The red wallpaper is beautiful artisan paper given to me by a friend, who has encouraged me to use a selection of papers she has given me throughout the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

Done