Lady Gladys Plays her Trump Card

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.

 

Today we are a short distance from Cavendish Mews, in the nearby upper-class suburb of Belgravia where Lettice is paying an unexpected call on Lady Gladys Caxton at her Regency terrace in Eaton Square*. Through her social connections, Lettice’s Aunt Egg contrived an invitation for Lettice to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their weekend parties at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John. Over the course of the weekend, Lettice was coerced into accepting Lady Glady’s request that she redecorate Phoebe’s small Bloomsbury pied-à-terre** in Ridgmount Gardens. Phoebe, upon coming of age inherited the flat, which had belonged to her parents, Reginald and Marjorie Chambers, who died out in India when Phoebe was still a little girl. The flat was held in trust by Lady Gladys until her ward came of age. When Phoebe decided to pursue a career in garden design and was accepted by a school in London closely associated with the Royal Society, she started living part time in Ridgmount Gardens. Lady Gladys felt that the pied-à-terre was too old fashioned and outdated in its appointment for a young girl like Phoebe. When Lady Gladys arranged for Lettice to inspect the flat, Lettice quickly became aware of Lady Gladys’ ulterior motives as she overrode the rather mousy Pheobe and instructed Lettice to redecorate everything to her own instructions and taste, whist eradicating any traces of Pheobe’s parents. Reluctantly, Lettice commenced on the commission which is nearing its completion. However earlier today Pheobe came to visit the flat whilst Lettice was there, and with a little coercion, Pheobe shared what she really felt about the redecoration of her parent’s pied-à-terre. Desperately wanting to express herself independently, Pheobe hoped living at the flat she would finally be able to get out from underneath the domineering influence of her aunt. Yet now the flat is simply another extension of Lady Glady’s wishes, and the elements of her parents that Pheobe adored have been appropriated by Lady Gladys. Determined to undo the wrong she has done by Pheobe by agreeing to all of Lady Glady’s wishes, in a moment of energizing anger, Lettice has decided to confront Lady Gladys, so now she is at Eaton Square.

 

“I’m sorry Miss Chetwynd, but if you haven’t made an appointment, I’m afraid that Lady Gladys cannot see you.” explains Miss Goodwin, Lady Gladys’ rather harried personal secretary, as she rustles papers, rearranging them distractedly into different piles on her small desk as she speaks. “She is simply too busy!”

 

“But Miss Goodwin…” Lettice begins.

 

“No, Miss Chetwynd!” the secretary replies more firmly. “Lady Gladys had a book reading in Charing Cross at two, and then there are the details of her American book tour to iron out.”

 

“You must be able to fit me in, Miss Goodwyn!” Lettice implores desperately. “I simply must see her about Phoebe’s pied-à-terre.”

 

“Is there something wrong with Miss Chambers’ pied-à-terre, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“No… well, yes… well… it’s nearly ready, but it’s all wrong.” Lettice replies, flustered as she falls under the sharp, owl-like gaze of the middle-aged spinster secretary, made all the more prominent by her gold rimmed pince-nez****. “It’s difficult to explain.” she finally concludes in a rather deflated fashion.

 

Miss Goodwin arches her expertly plucked and shaped eyebrows over her eyes sceptically. “Evidently.” she remarks in a dismissive fashion. Reluctantly picking up her appointment book for Lady Gladys, she flips through the lined pages filled with her neatly written copperplate. “Let’s see.” she mutters, exhaling through her nostrils in frustration as she does. “I can fit you in next Tuesday at three o’clock if you like.” She picks up her fountain pen in readiness to record Lettice’s name.

 

“Next Tuesday?” Lettice retorts in horror. “But I can’t wait until next Tuesday, Miss Goodwin.”

 

“Oh?” Miss Goodwin queries. “But I thought you said the flat redecoration was nearly complete, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Well it is, Miss Goodwin.”

 

“Then, I’m sure this small matter,” the secretary emphasises the last two words as she speaks. “Can wait until then.”

 

Lettice gulps for air in an exasperated fashion. “But… I…”

 

“No, Miss Chetwynd!” Miss Goodwin says again, firmly pressing the palms of both her hands into the piles of paper before her defiantly.

 

“What’s all this sound of discourse then?” comes a male voice, booming through the charged air of Miss Goodwin’s small office on the ground floor of the Eaton Square terrace.

 

“Oh! Sir John!” the secretary exclaims, as Lady Glady’s husband, a tall and white haired gentleman in a smart morning suit pops his head around the door, his gentle face moulded into a look of concern. “Please forgive us. I was just explaining to Miss Chetwynd, that Lady Gladys cannot possibly see her now.”

 

“Oh enough of the ‘sir’ and ‘lady’, Goody,” Sir John says with a smile as he sees Lettice standing in front of the secretary’s desk, addressing Lady Glady’s secretary by the pet name given her by Sir John and Lady Gladys. “Lettice knows us intimately enough to know we don’t go by the titles bestowed upon us.” His smile broadens. “Lettice, what an unexpected pleasure.” He steps into the room and places his large hands firmly upon her shoulders. “I was just on my way out to Whites***** when I heard the commotion. Whatever is the matter, my dear?”

 

“Si… John,” Lettice begins, her eyes looking imploringly at Sir John as he towers over her. “It’s imperative I see Gladys right away. It’s about Pheobe and the flat.”

 

“That does sound serious.” he remarks, his face clouding over.

 

“Oh it is, and that’s why I must see Gladys now.” She turns her head slightly and glares at Miss Goodwin, whose own face is sternly defiant in her reluctance to admit Lettice.

 

“Well,” Sir John says with a chuckle. “I’ve quite literally just left her in her upstairs study, autographing some of her novels. She isn’t due at Foyles****** until two o’clock, is she, Goody?” Sir John doesn’t wait for her reply as he sweeps an arm around Lettice’s shoulder comfortingly and guides her away from the secretary and towards the door. “So come along.”

 

Leaving the affronted Miss Goodwin behind, Sir John leads Lettice up the grand main staircase of the terrace, with its thick stair carpet affixed with brass stair rods******* and stylish gilt detailed black metal balustrade.

 

“Are these all Caxtons?” Lettice asks as she gazes up the generous Regency proportioned stairwell at the portraits in oils hanging in gilded frames along the walls.

 

“Hhhmm… a few.” Sir John mutters. “Like him.” He points to a rather serious looking gentleman in middle-class mid Victorian sombre black. “But most of them I bought when I bought the house. It seemed a shame for them to be parted, especially as their former bankrupted owner had no use for them any more. He needed the money, and I… well…” He chuckles a little awkwardly.

 

“You needed the lineage.” Lettice completes his sentence.

 

“How perceptive you are, Lettice.” Sir John says without missing a beat as they walk. “It’s what comes with the pretentions of a social climbing first wife, and my acquired title*******. I’m not as fortunate as you to have such a distinguished lineage, having been born into a wool merchant family in Hallifax.”

 

Lettice doesn’t reply, and merely smiles and nods her acknowledgement.

 

“Now, what’s all this about Pheobe’s flat then, Lettice? I hope you aren’t having any problems with the wages for the tradesmen traipsing in and out of Ridgmount Gardens. I’ve been writing so many cheques for them lately that I can barely keep up.”

 

“Oh, it has nothing to do with their wages, John.”

 

“Then what? You sounded most insistent back there with Miss Goodwin, and whilst I don’t claim to know you well, you don’t strike me as a girl who gives in to having histrionic fits.”

 

Lettice smiles and chuckles softly as Sir John’s remark reminds her of her friend, ‘Moaning’ Minnie Palmerston, wife of a London banker, who is known for her histrionics.

 

The pair reach the landing between the ground and first floor, where a large marble bust of a gentleman in a periwig******** stares out with blind eyes and a frozen, magnanimous smile at the treetops of the garden square outside through a large twelve pane sash window. Lettice stops, causing Sir John to do the same.

 

“May I be frank, Si… err, John?” Lettice asks, gazing up at the man’s wrinkled face.

 

“Please, Lettice.” he agrees.

 

“Well, I’ve had concerns about this commission, ever since I first visited Ridgmount Gardens.”

 

“Concerns?” Sir John’s face crumples. “What concerns, Lettice?”

 

“When Gladys took me there, well no, even before that, I’ve been worried about Glady’s motivations for wanting the flat decorated.”

 

“What motivations?”

 

“It struck me, John, as she discussed the redecoration for the flat with me, that it is more to Gladys’ taste than Pheobe’s.”

 

“Is that all?” Sir John chuckles and sighs with relief. “You’ve met Pheobe. She’s a sweet child, and I love her as one of my own, but she isn’t overly forthcoming, is she?”

 

“But it’s more than that. I’ve observed that whenever Pheobe expresses an opinion that contradicts Gladys, that Gladys wears her down to her down, and brings her around to her own way of thinking.”

 

“Ahh..” Sir John says a little awkwardly. “Well, you may lay the blame for that solely at my feet, dear Lettice. I’m afraid that when I met Gladys, I was so taken by her pluck and spirit that I indulged her. I saw so much potential in her: potential that was stymied due to her lack of wealth. We’ve been married for a good many years now, and I’m afraid that she is rather used to getting her own way.”

 

“Well, I can work with that, John. Gladys isn’t without panache and certainly has a sense of style.”

 

“Then I don’t see the problem, my dear.” He looks quizzically at her. “You said you wanted to be frank. Speak plainly.”

 

Lettice sighs and her shoulders slump. “You’ll think it preposterous, and I am sorry to say this, but I think that Gladys is eradicating the memory of Pheobe’s parents.”

 

Sir John laughs. “You’re right, I do find that idea preposterous, my dear, but only because Pheobe has very little memories of her parents there to erase. She only ever lived the first year of her life in Ridgmount Gardens before Reginald took her and Marjorie back to India, and when he and Marjorie died out there, Pheobe was only five, and Gladys and I were married by that time, so we took Pheobe back to Gossington and she grew up there. She has no associations with Ridgmount Gardens, other than she has always known that her father bequeathed it to her and that she would take possession of it when she came of age.”

 

“John, Pheobe came to the flat today to fetch some of the books she needed that had been packed up when she decamped Ridgmount Gardens so the redecoration could commence, and she expressed the opinion which she also did with Gladys that she wanted to keep her father’s writing desk and her mother’s crockery. Pheobe says that she feels the essence of her parents in those pieces more than in the photographs she has of them.”

 

Sir John smiles indulgently. “That sounds like Pheobe. She’s always been fey and other world like, imagining that she can see inside people to their inner essence, ever since she was that forlorn child we brought back from Bombay.” He shakes his head dismissively.

 

“Yet Gladys has taken the bureau in spite of Phoebe’s wishes, claiming that her brother intended for her to have it, and she gave me the china to dispose of. Pheobe also told me that Gladys has said in front of her that her brother should never have married Phoebe’s mother. It seems to me that she is intentionally trying to remove any reminders of her brother and his wife.”

 

“It is true that there was never any love lost between Gladys and her sister-in-law. I’m not quite sure why, other that the fact she claimed that Marjorie stymied Reginald’s career in some way. I couldn’t see that myself. He was on his way to being a magistrate from what I could see. She was always evasive, never wanting to rake over the coals. I only ever met Reginald and Marjorie a few times around Gladys’ and my wedding day, and even then, it was only a fleeting visit, so I cannot say that I was critical of their marriage the way Gladys was. I did chide Gladys for speaking out of turn about Marjorie in front of Pheobe, but,” He looks guiltily at Lettice. “You know what Gladys is like. She’s always spoken her mind, and for all the fault in her that it may be, it is one of the reasons I love her.”

 

“But to intentionally remove any reminders of Mr. and Mrs. Chambers, John?”

 

“Oh I’m sure it isn’t intentional, Lettice.” Sir John assures her. “It’s good you’ve come when you have. You can speak to Gladys about this misunderstanding.”

 

“Misunderstanding?”

 

“Yes, I’m sure that’s all that it is. Whatever my wife may or may not be, she has tried all her life to do the best my Pheobe, and I’m sure that if Phoebe is as impassioned as you say she is about her father’s desk and her mother’s china, she probably just needs someone else to speak for her about it to Gladys.” He wraps his arm around Lettice assuring and gives her forearm a hearty rub. “And you’ll be capital about that. Now, come along.”

 

The pair take the final flight of stairs to the first floor in thoughtful silence. Sir John leads Lettice up to a doorway, knocks and opens it, walking in without waiting for a reply. “Look who I found downstairs, having the fiercest argument with your goodly protectress, Gladys.”

 

Lettice follows Sir John into a beautiful high ceilinged first-floor room flooded with light from two large and tall Regency windows. Like Gossington, the Scottish Baronial style English Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland belonging to Sir John and Lady Gladys, the walls are decorated with William Morris********* patterned wallpaper, and the room is furnished with Edwardian and Art Nouveau furnishings. However, unlike Gossington’s public rooms, which are crammed full of Edwardian clutter, the scheme in this room is far lighter, with the delicate and softer ‘Willow Bough’ pattern in the paper, and rather than being upholstered in Morris pattern as well, the sofas and chairs situated about the room are covered in a stripped back creamy Regency stripe, perhaps in deference to the terrace’s origins. Even the clutter here is less, with fewer vases and trinkets covering the surfaces of tables. In fact, the mantle is the most cluttered, and even then it is mostly with invitations and correspondence addressed to Lady Gladys’ non de plume of Madeline St John. And there, at a small black japanned regency desk sits Lady Gladys in her favoured pastel shades and pearls.

 

“Lettice!” she gasps, looking up from signing a copy of her latest Madeline St John romance novel, ‘Miranda’. “What an unexpected pleasure.” She picks herself up out of her high backed black japanned and gilt French Second Empire chair and opens her arms to Lettice, exposing the pretty knitted patterns woven through her light, pale pink cardigan that she has chosen to wear over a pink floral print cotton frock. As Lettice crosses the room, gracefully moving through the obstacle course of low occasional tables and comfortable salon and armchairs, Lady Gladys’ face clouds. “Or is it? Did… did we have an appointment today, my dear?”

 

“No, no, Gladys.” Lettice assures her as she reaches Lady Gladys and allows herself to enveloped in her lavender scented embrace. “It’s an unannounced visit.”

 

“Well then, I do hope that Goody wasn’t too cantankerous with you. I adore her, and she’s an excellent and superbly organised secretary, but Goody doesn’t particularly like surprise visits and will do almost anything to stick rigidly to her arrangement of my schedules.”

 

“I caught Goody in full flight, and rescued poor Lettice from her recalcitrant clutches.” Sir John remarks.

 

“Always the knight in shining armour, John. Bravo!” Lady Gladys applauds her husband.

 

“Well, I’m off then.” Sir John says.

 

“Oh, won’t you stay, John?” Lettice says, her voice cracking. She had been hoping he might stick to form as her rescuer and stay to help influence her pleas with Lady Gladys favourably.

 

“Oh no, Lettice my dear!” He starts to back away towards the door. “Whites waits for no man, and nor does my contract bridge partner. I’ve tarried long enough. Besides,” he adds. “This is between you two ladies.” And with that, he turns on his heel and retreats out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

 

“Say hullo to Fillmore for me, and give him my love, John.” Gladys calls after his retreating footsteps.

 

The room falls into a soft silence broken only by the twitter of birds in the trees outside, the purring of a passing motorcar on the road and the gentle tick of a gilt clock on a bombe chest between the two windows.

 

“Well, I have a little bit of time before I must away to Foyles.” Lady Gladys says, pulling back the sleeve of her cardigan and glancing at her delicate gold and diamond studded wristwatch. “Oh! Which reminds me, I must, must, must, sign copies of a couple of my novels for your maid. Edith, isn’t it?”

 

“Quite so, Gladys.”

 

“Good! You can take her a copy of ‘Miranda’ today.” Lady Gladys takes a seat again as she takes up a copy of the book and inscribes it with a flourish of her pen. “To Edith, with my best wishes, Madeline St John.” she utters as she writes. Finishing the inscription, she closes the cover of the book with a thwack. “I almost need a forger on my retinue of office staff to sign all the requested copies of my books.” She hands the book to Lettice. “Please, sit.” She indicates to a tall wingback armchair by the fireplace with an open gesture. As Lettice sits, she spins in her own seat, leaning heavily against the chair’s left ornately spindled arm. “Now, what can I do for you, Lettice?”

 

Lettice takes a deep breath. “Well, Gladys, I wanted to talk to you about the flat.”

 

“Oh yes!” Gladys crows, clapping her hands, the diamonds and other precious stones of her rings winking in the light. “My spies tell me that it has been quite the hive of activity at Ridgmount Gardens!”

 

“Your spies?”

 

“Oh, don’t look so shocked, Lettice.” Lady Gladys laughs. “Bloomsbury is such an artistic area, full of writers, many of whom I know.” She smiles slyly. “Writers are notorious for being observant of their surroundings. It doesn’t take long for the jungle drums to start beating, my dear.”

 

“Oh.” Lettice remarks.

 

“Now, what is it about the flat you want to talk about?” Yet even as she asks, she then adds, “Oh, the chintz curtains I wanted did arrive, didn’t they, Lettice?”

 

Lettice shudders at the thought of them. “Yes, Gladys, and they are hanging in the drawing room, just as you’d requested.”

 

“Excellent!”

 

“But it’s your requests,” Lettice gulps awkwardly. “Or rather… your demands… that I’ve come to speak to you about.”

 

“Demands?” A defensive edge makes its way into her well enunciated words as Lady Gladys queries Lettice’s remark.

 

“Commands.” Lettice blunders.

 

“Commands!” Lady Glady’s eyes flicker slightly.

 

“There’s a problem with your requests, Gladys.” Lettice tries to venture, her voice faltering and sounding weak as the words catch in her throat.

 

“A problem with my requests, Lettice?” Lady Gladys lowers her left arm so it dangles down by her side, whilst raising her right to her chin in a ponderous pose as she considers her visitor, perching on the edge of her seat awkwardly, as if seeing her for the first time. “What could possibly be wrong with any of the requests I have made? Have I made demands that are unreasonable? Is there something wrong with the shade of green of the walls, the choice of soft furnishings,” She pauses. “The chintz curtains?”

 

“Well,” Lettice tries to momentarily make light of the moment. “Chintz isn’t something I’d choose for myself, Gladys.”

 

“I chose those for Phoebe specifically,” Lady Gladys says sharply, the volume of her voice rising slightly as she does.. “Because I thought she might appreciate the connection between the nature she so loves and her living space.”

 

“And she does, Gladys.” Lettice defends. “She even remarked on them when she was at Ridgmount Gardens today.”

 

“Oh, so that’s where she went.”

 

“She came to fetch some books she left behind at the flat that she needs for her studies.”

 

“Or so Pheobe claims.” Lady Gladys retorts.

 

“And whilst we were there, we had a conversation,” Lettice tries to steal her voice as she adds, “An honest conversation.”

 

Lady Gladys does not reply immediately, but considers Lettice’s statement before asking, “And what was it in that honest conversation that now has you at my door, Lettice?”

 

Lettice notices, as she feels sure she is meant to, that the endearments of ‘my dear’, usually attached to her name, have suddenly vanished.

 

Well, you’ll forgive me, Gladys, but when Pheobe and I were speaking, she shared with me her concerns that the flat is perhaps not being redecorated,” Lettice quickly, yet carefully considers each word as she speaks it, conscious of the precarious situation she finds herself in. She doesn’t want to invoke Lady Gladys’ ire against phoebe, nor against herself. “In the… the style which she would prefer.”

 

“The style she would prefer?” Gladys suddenly leans back in her seat and starts laughing, but the laugh is devoid of joy. “Lettice, Pheobe has no opinion when it comes to style, the little mouse.” She stares out of the window into the sunshine bathing the trees of the gated garden square across the road. “Actually, she has very little opinion about anything, quite frankly.”

 

“Well, there I would beg to disagree with you, Gladys.” Lettice retorts, suddenly filled with a necessity to defend Phoebe.

 

“Do you indeed?”

 

“I do.” Lettice affirms, her voice growing stronger. “You see, you have a very… a very strong personality.”

 

“Forthright is what John would call my personality.”

 

“Strong, forthright: either description amounts to much the same. I’ve observed that on the rare occasions Phoebe disagrees with your opinion, you quickly snuff out any objection.”

 

“Such as?” Lady Gladys asks warily.

 

“Such as when I first visited Ridgmount Gardens with you, after we had been to your book launch at Selfridges, when Phoebe protested that she wanted to keep her father’s bureau desk, you wouldn’t let her.”

 

“Lettice,” Lady Gladys sighs heavily. “As I mentioned to you both then, and have repeated several times when the subject of my brother’s desk has been raised by Phoebe subsequently with me, Reginald wanted me to have it. He simply died before he had a chance to put his affairs in order.”

 

“And her mother’s china?”

 

“Good god, Lettice!” Lady Gladys exclaims. “Why on earth should Phoebe want those old hat Style Liberty********** cups, saucers and plates, when she can have something of far superior quality and are more up-to-date in style.”

 

“You seem to be a proponent of Style Liberty, Gladys.” Lettice indicates with waving gestures about the room.

 

“And as I said to you at Gossington, the style may have been fashionable when I was younger, but it died when all our young men did, during the war. It’s past: dead! Anyway,” she sulks. “They are cheap, nasty pieces of pottery, and many of them are chipped, even if Marjorie kept them for best. She never did have good taste.”

 

“Whether they are cheap or chipped, Gladys, Phoebe feels that her flat is missing her parent’s essence.” When Lady Gladys scoffs scornfully, Lettice continues, “She specifically mentioned the chips in her mother’s plates and teacups and the grooves and ink stains in her father’s bureau.”

 

“Phoebe always was an odd child,” Lady Gladys ruminates. “Going on about the essence of a person. She has photos to look at if she wants to get an essence of her long dead parents. Lettice, John and I have been far more of parents to her than Reginald and Marjorie.”

 

“I’m not disputing that, Gladys. All I am stating is what Phoebe told me. You have your own desk,” Lettice points to the delicate desk before which Lady Gladys sits. “Why not give Phoebe what she wants? Is it so hard?”

 

“I’ve been giving that child all that she needs and wants for years: ever since I brought her back from India as a five year old. I’ve given her everything a real mother would.”

 

“Then why not give her the bureau. Please, Gladys.”

 

“I repeat!” Lady Gladys snaps. “Reginald wanted me to have his bureau! It’s mine!”

 

Lady Gladys suddenly sits upright in her seat and slams her palms into its arm rests, huffing heavily with frustration. “Well Lettice, I have enjoyed our impromptu little tête-à-tête, but I’m afraid I really must go. I don’t wish to keep the Messrs Foyle waiting. They have been very good to me, arranging this reading at their bookshop.”

 

“But…” Lettice begins.

 

Lady Gladys picks up a silver bell from the surface of her desk and rings it, the metal bell emitting a high pitched ring. “Whom, may I ask is paying the bills for all the tradespeople you have engaged on your little project of redecorating Ridgmount Gardens?”

 

“Sir John.”

 

“Then let me remind you that Sir John is acting on my behalf, paying those bills. When you agreed to accept my commission, we entered into a contract: a contract that you and I both signed before our lawyers.”

 

“Yes, at your insistence.”

 

“Exactly, because I suspected a situation somewhat sticky like this might arise. I didn’t have to choose you to redecorate Phoebe’s flat. I could have chosen any number of my friends who dabble in interior design. Indeed Syrie Maugham*********** felt quite slighted that I chose you over her, with all her successes. I wanted to give you the opportunity to increase your profile as a society interior designer , because my word goes a long way.” “Lettice, I might be many things, but I’m not a woman without tact, but as our time today is up, you must force me to be blunt.” She begins to shuffle the remaining copies of her novels on her desk irritably. “You agree that you signed a contract with me, so as your client I request… no I demand,” She uses Lettice’s choice of words back at her. “That you do everything I want: everything, down to the last little detail, or I shall consider the contract null and void, and therefore I shall be under no obligation to arrange for John to pay any outstanding bills, and further to that, if you do anything forcing me to terminate our contract, I shall make sure that every drawing room is talking about your untrustworthiness, Lettice. Do I make myself clear?”

 

Just at that moment, Miss Goodwin bustles into the room. “You rang, Gladys?”

 

“Yes Goody.” Gladys says with a painted smile. “My delightful impromptu meeting with Miss Chetwynd is over. Would you kindly show her out. I must get ready for my reading at Foyles.”

 

“Yes Gladys.” She smiles at Lettice. “Right this way, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

As Miss Goodwin ushers Lettice towards the door, Gladys adds from her seat at her desk, “Thank you so much for visiting me today, my dear Lettice. I think it has helped us both better understand our positions. I’m sure you agree.”

 

“This way, Miss Chetwynd.” Miss Goodwin says again as she guides the shocked and silent Lettice out of the door, closing it quietly behind her.

 

*Eaton Square is a rectangular residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is the largest square in London. It is one of the three squares built by the landowning Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the Nineteenth Century that are named after places in Cheshire — in this case Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house. It is larger but less grand than the central feature of the district, Belgrave Square, and both larger and grander than Chester Square. The first block was laid out by Thomas Cubitt from 1827. In 2016 it was named as the "Most Expensive Place to Buy Property in Britain", with a full terraced house costing on average seventeen million pounds — many of such town houses have been converted, within the same, protected structures, into upmarket apartments.

 

**A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.

 

***Charing Cross is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. It was also famous in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries as being the centre for bookselling in London.

 

****Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose".

 

*****White's is a gentlemen's club in St James's, London. Founded in 1693 as a hot chocolate shop in Mayfair, it is the oldest gentleman's club in London. Notable current members include Charles III and the Prince of Wales and former British prime minister David Cameron, whose father Ian Cameron was the club's chairman, was a member for fifteen years but resigned in 2008, over the club's declining to admit women. The club continues to maintain its tradition as a club for gentlemen only, although one of its best known chefs from the early 1900s was Rosa Lewis, a model for the central character in the BBC television series “The Duchess of Duke Street”.

 

******W & G Foyle Ltd. (usually called simply Foyles) is a bookseller with a chain of seven stores in England. It is best known for its flagship store in Charing Cross Road, London. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and of number of titles on display. Brothers William and Gilbert Foyle founded the business in 1903. After failing entrance exams for the civil service, the brothers offered their redundant textbooks for sale and were inundated by offers. This inspired them to launch a second-hand book business from home. Flushed with success, they opened a small shop on Station Parade in Queen's Road, Peckham, where they painted "With all Faith" in gilt letters above the door. The brothers opened their first West End shop in 1904, at 16 Cecil Court. A year later they hired their first member of staff, who promptly disappeared with the weekly takings. By 1906, their shop was at 135 Charing Cross Road and they were described as London's largest educational booksellers. By 1910, Foyles had added four suburban branches: at Harringay, Shepherd's Bush, Kilburn and Brixton. Not long afterwards, the brothers moved their central London store to 119 Charing Cross Road, the Foyles Building, where it remained until 2014. Foyles was famed in the past for its anachronistic, eccentric and sometimes infuriating business practices (ones I have been personally involved in), so much so that it became a tourist attraction. It has since modernised, and has opened several branches and an online store.

 

*******A stair rod, also commonly referred to as a carpet rod, is an ornamental decorative hardware item used to hold carpeting in place on steps.

 

********Titles into the British Peerage weren't for sale as such, but a social climbing gentleman could certainly buy his way into the nobility if he were wealthy and well connected enough, and used the social and political power of wealth wisely. In the pre-war (Great War) years, when money went a great deal further than it did before the introduction of heavy income taxes and death duties, if you had money, it was not hugely difficult to effectively buy yourself a seat in parliament or a commission in the military (both of which were functionally up for sale), which could often result in a peerage being granted if you stayed around long enough in the right circles, or were favoured by the right people. The Tories of the late Eighteenth Century were infamous for packing the House of Lords with supporters in order to retain a majority (most aristocratic families had favoured the Whigs earlier in the Georgian era). If a man were shrewd enough to curry favour with a Tory like Lord North or Pitt the Younger, then he could probably get a title quite easily, since the Tory base of support was within the untitled gentry, and they needed to maintain control of the Lords. Currying favour with the monarch worked equally well, and King Edward VII was famous for minting fresh peers regularly, filling his levees with wealthy industrialists, manufacturers and men of business whom he found more engaging than the idle peers of long standing aristocratic titles.

 

********A periwig a highly styled wig worn formerly as a fashionable headdress by both women and men in the Eighteenth Century and retained by judges and barristers as part of their professional dress to this day.

 

*********William Morris (24th of March 1834 – 3rd of October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain. In 1861, Morris founded the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, which became highly fashionable and much in demand. The firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period, with Morris designing tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows. In 1875, he assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co.

 

**********The artistic movement we know of today internationally as Art Nouveau, was more commonly known as the “Arts and Crafts Movement” or “Style Liberty” in the United Kingdom during the years before and after the Great War, driven by the Glasgow School of Arts, where a great many proponents of the style came from, and by the luxury London shop Liberty on Regent Street which sold a great deal of William Morris’ designs to the general public.

 

***********Gwendoline Maud Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s who popularised rooms decorated entirely in white. In the 1910s, Maugham began her interior design career as an apprentice under Ernest Thornton-Smith for a London decorating firm, learning there about the intricacies of furniture restoration, trompe-l'œil, curtain design, and the mechanics of traditional upholstery. In 1922, two years before this story is set, at the age of 42, Maugham borrowed £400.00 and opened her own interior decorating business at 85 Baker Street, London. As the shop flourished, Maugham began decorating, taking on projects in Palm Beach and California. By 1930, she had shops in London, Chicago, and New York. Maugham is best-remembered for the all-white music room at her house at 213 King's Road in London. For the grand unveiling of her all-white room, Maugham went to the extreme of dipping her white canvas draperies in cement. The room was filled with massive white floral arrangements and the overall effect was stunning. Maugham charged high prices and could be very dictatorial with her clients and employees. She once told a hesitant client, "If you don't have ten thousand dollars to spend, I don't want to waste my time."

 

This English Arts and Crafts upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Lady Glady’s pretty black japanned desk has been made by the high-end miniature furniture manufacturer Bespaq, and it has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs. Her Louis XIV white Regency stripe upholstered chair and its pair which can just be seen behind the desk to the left of the fireplace have been made by the high-end miniature furniture manufacturer, J.B.M. They too have been hand painted and decorated, even along the tops of the arms. On the desk are some 1:12 artisan miniature ink bottles, a silver pen and a blotter all made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The ink bottles are made from tiny faceted crystal beads and have sterling silver bottoms and lids. The pen is a twist of silver with a tiny seed pearl inserted into the end of it The ink blotter is sterling silver too and has a blotter made of real black felt, cut meticulously to size to fit snugly inside the frame. The silver double frame on the top of the desk comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniature Collectables. The silver tray holding letters on the top left of the desk is sterling silver as well and was acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Also on the desk are some copies of Lady Gladys’ books. They are all examples of 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, this selection of romance novels are not designed to be opened. What might amaze you in spite of this fact is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. The books in the Art Nouveau fretwork cabinet in the background are all made by Ken Blythe as well. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The correspondence on the fireplace mantle and on the silver tray on Lady Gladys’ desk were made meticulously by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. They are 1:12 miniature versions of real documents.

 

At either end of mantle stand a pair of Staffordshire sheep which have been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the sheep actually have smiles on their faces!

 

The two Art Nouveau style vases at either end of the mantlepiece and the squat one in the middle half hidden by correspondence came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The irises in the vase on the left-hand side of the mantle are all made of polymer clay that is moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. Very realistic looking, they are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.

 

The two gilt edged paintings hanging to either side of the fireplace were made by Marie Makes Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The painting in the white painted wooden frame hanging above the mantlepiece comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop as does the finely moulded plaster fireplace itself and its metal grate.

 

The enclosed bookcase full of Ken Blythe’s miniature books in the background to the left of the photo with its glass doors and Art Nouveau fretwork was made by Bespaq Miniatures, as were the white Regency stripe upholstered wingback armchair in front of the fireplace and sofa just visible to the left of the photograph. The hand embroidered footstool in front of the armchair comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.

 

The wallpaper used to decorate Lady Gladys’ walls is William Morris’ ‘Willow Bough’ pattern.

 

The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.

Done