Two Ladies Knitting

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 however we have headed slightly west from Mayfair, across Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens, where on a bench along the path overlooking the Serpentine, not too far from the statue of Peter Pan* stands, Lettice’s maid Edith and her best friend and fellow maid, Hilda, are sitting, knitting in the early afternoon sun. Edith and Hilda met when they worked as under house maids in the Pimlico household of industrialist Mr. Plaistow and his wife. The two girls used to share a room together, up under the eaves of the grand Regency terrace house. When Edith left Mrs. Plaistow to work for Lettice she felt badly for her friend, not being able to bring her with her, but subsequently Edith helped Hilda to leave Pimlico by arranging for Hilda to become the live-in maid for Lettice’s married friends Margot and Dickie Channon, who live just a stone’s throw from Lettice’s Cavendish Mews flat in Hill Street.

 

Today is Sunday, a day that both ladies have free from their domestic duties to attend church and perhaps visit their families or enjoy themselves in the afternoon before returning to their jobs at four o’clock. Edith is stepping out with Frank Leadbetter, the young grocery delivery boy and sometimes window dresser of Mr. Willison’s Grocery in Binney Street, Mayfair. When Edith and Frank are not spending time together as a young courting couple, it is not unknown for the three of them to spend Sunday afternoons together, enjoying the delights of the latest moving pictures at the Premier in East Ham** or dancing at the Hammersmith Palais***, however today Frank is absent from the girls’ Sunday plans, with the young man escorting his elderly grandmother, Mrs. McTavish to Aberdeen in Scotland for the birthday of her brother, his Great Uncle, Finlay McBryde. Thus, the two friends are enjoying some time together instead, and they have decided to take advantage of the bright, sunny day and spend it sitting in the park, knitting. Around them, people promenade in their Sunday best: families of all classes, the children of wealthier families being taken for a Sunday afternoon perambulation in the park by their nannies, young couples enjoying the sunshine and men and women on their own, all going about their business in a more leisurely way as they enjoy what may be perhaps one of the last really sunny days of 1924. Beyond them, the bells of central London ring in the distance, calling the faithful who have not yet visited to afternoon prayers and masses.

 

“I do like your new hat, Hilda.” Edith remarks upon her best friend’s new cream coloured cloche.

 

Decorated with silk roses and long white feathers, the pretty bleached straw hat acquired from Mrs. Minkin’s Haberdashery in Whitechapel wraps around Hilda’s plump face and mousy brown waves fashionably.

 

“Oh, thank you Edith.” Hilda says with a smile, patting her crown self-consciously.

 

“See?”

 

“See what, Edith?”

 

Edith goes on. “I told you that you should have told Mrs. Channon that Miss Lettice had increased my wages sooner. Then you might have been able to afford your new hat sooner.”

 

“Oh, it just wasn’t the right time, Edith.” Hilda defends herself. “You know all about that spot of bother we had after the lobster dinner party,” Hilda pauses. Lowering her voice she continues in a conspiratorial whisper, “When Mrs. Channon had to hock her fur tippet to get me enough money to feed us all.”

 

“Oh yes, minced meat and potato stew for all.” Edith chuckles quietly in response. “But all that’s over and done with now, isn’t it, Hilda? It’s sorted?”

 

“Oh yes, we’re back to a more even keel.” Hilda scoffs in her seat, snorting as she does. “If you can ever call anything in Hill Street evenly keeled.” She pauses and counts her stitches. “It’s still the occasional robbing Peter to pay Paul*****, but there are no more mincemeat dinners for Mr. and Mrs. Channon.”

 

“But no more Lobster Newberg****** either, I’ll wager.” Edith clucks.

 

“Thank goodness, no!” Hilda gasps. “Don’t even jest about it, Edith!”

 

“Whyever not, Hilda?”

 

“Well, that night with that loud American millionaire Mr. Carter and his uppity wife: I was terrified that we were going to serve them something that they didn’t like, or that wasn’t done to Mr. Carter’s exacting tastes.”

 

“Well, you had me with you that night, and whilst there wasn’t anything wrong with the lobsters, or anything else we served that night, if there had been, you could have blamed me.”

 

“Never!” Hilda gasps. “I’d never blame my best friend for anything, especially since you were such a lifesaver that night! My nerves wouldn’t have coped with waiting table and cooking the lobster and the pudding that night.”

 

“Dessert,” Edith corrects her friend*******.

 

“Dessert,” Hilda repeats, smiling as she remembers the delicious gelatinous leftovers of Edith’s trifle******** which the pair scooped from one of Lettice’s large faceted Art Deco crystal bowls as they set about washing up the dishes from the Channon’s grand dinner party as the hosts and their guests enjoyed Hilda’s ground coffee in the Hill Street flat’s drawing room. “Anyway it wasn’t the moment in the aftermath of that bankrupting dinner party, what with all that going on, for me to ask for a wage increase. And even then, with Mrs. Channon’s father paying my wages, he hasn’t been as generous as your Miss Lettice has been.”

 

“Well, any wage increase is better than none, Hilda.”

 

“I’ll say, but you really can afford more of life’s little luxuries now, what with your extra shillings: a quarter pound of real cocoa, or some lovely Ivory********* lavender or rose scented soap.”

 

“I’m actually putting most of it away to keep for when Frank and I set up house, once we’re married.” Edith explains. She lowers her knitting to her lap momentarily. “Although I must confess I did use some of my new wages to buy that beautiful French lace the day we went to Mrs. Minkin’s to buy your hat.”

 

“Aha!” Hilda crows. “I knew you’d spend some of it. Mind you, it will be perfect as part of your trousseau**********.”

 

“Well,” Edith says with a sly smile. “I did think that when I saw it. It would make a lovely trim on some cami-knickers***********. Although it was a bit extravagant. I daren’t tell Mum. She’d be furious.”

 

“Well, why not? It’s your money, after all. You’ve earned it.”

 

“I should be saving as much as I can for after we’re married, after all, I’ll have to leave service once I’m Mrs. Frank Leadbetter************.”

 

“I don’t think a little treat every now and then does any real harm.” Hilda says, nudging her friend conspiratorially.

 

Edith smiles contentedly, pauses her knitting again and stares out at the expanse of undulating green grass where she sees a young married couple in their Sunday best, helping their baby to walk.

 

“Wait!” Hilda gasps, pausing her own knitting and swivelling in her seat on the park bench to face her friend. “He hasn’t proposed, and you haven’t told me yet, has he?”

 

“No, of course not, Hilda!” Edith retorts. “How could you even think such a thing?” She looks earnestly at her best friend. “You’ll be one of the first people I tell, Hilda!”

 

“That’s a relief, then!” Hilda puts a hand to her chest and heaves a sigh.

 

“Of course I’d tell you! You’re going to be my maid of honour: unless of course you get married before I do, in which case you can be my matron of honour.”

 

“Pshaw!” Hilda mutters dismissively as she takes up her knitting again. “Chance would be a fine thing.”

 

“You never know, Hilda.” Edith returns to her own ever growing rows of knitting. “One day, one of the ladies at Ms. Minkin’s knitting circle might have a handsome and eligible bachelor brother for you to meet. Wouldn’t that be just the thing?”

 

Hilda gives her friend a doubtful look, and they both laugh good-naturedly, but their laughter is tinged with a little sadness. Edith still hopes that her best friend will one day meet a young man, or even an older one, who will meet her desires for an intelligent match, and form a loving relationship with him.

 

“Mind you,” Edith continues her previous train of thought. “I have an idea as to how I can still make money after I am married.”

 

“How’s that then?”

 

“Well, you know how I told you that Miss Lettice apologised to me after she was all prickly with me.” When Hilda nods, Edith continues. “The day she did, she told me something else too, that got my mind to thinking.”

 

“What?” Hilda asks excitedly. “What did she say?”

 

“She told me that Mr. Bruton, you know her friend who makes frocks in Grosvenor Square?”

 

“I know of him, and you’ve shown me people wearing his frocks in cutouts stuck in your scrapbooks.”

 

“Well, she told me that Mr. Bruton told her that he’s take me on as a seamstress if he could afford to pay me the wages.”

 

Hilda screws up her nose. “That doesn’t sound like much of a plan. If he can’t afford to pay you, he won’t be much good.”

 

“But he might be able to by the time Frank and me is wed, Hilda, and then I can do what Mum does sometimes and make clothes, only I’d be getting paid better than she does for the piecework she used to take from awful old widow Hounslow and her crotchety and tight fisted old friends. I’d be working for a man who makes real gowns for real ladies! Just imagine that!”

 

“Yes, imagine!” Hilda says doubtfully.

 

“Oh, don’t pooh-pooh my idea, Hilda!”

 

“I’m not, but there’s no guarantee you will get to work for Mr. Bruton.”

 

“Well, no, but Frank hasn’t proposed yet, and there’s plenty of time until we are eventually married, Hilda.” She looks with hope filled dreams to her friend. “And even if a job doesn’t work out with Mr. Bruton, I’ve got good enough skills that someone else would be happy for me to take in piece work at home.”

 

“And Frank wouldn’t mind?” Hilda tempers. “He’s a proud man, Edith.”

 

“Oh no! Frank understands. We’ve even spoken about me doing a little something after we’re married, just to help make ends meet.”

 

“Well, that’s alright then, Edith.”

 

Edith sighs as she allows the late summer sun on an unusually sunny London day to soak into her bones as she allows the gentle, constant, rhythmic movement of her knitting to lull her comfortably. She listens to the noises around her as she lets her lids sink soporifically over her eyes: the twitter of birds in the undergrowth and in the trees behind her, the laughter and the occasional cry from the children playing on the lawns nearby and the click of heels and quiet chatter of the people passing by their bench. She lets her thoughts wander, and she imagines herself in a few years’ time, married to Frank and knitting booties and comforters for their babies.

 

“Oh pooh!” Hilda mutters, bringing Edith back to the present.

 

“What is it, Hilda?” Edith asks, pausing her knitting and opening her eyes.

 

Hilda is looking down at the knitting in her lap, a grumpy look crumpling her doughy face. Her sausage fingers begin tugging at the creamy coloured yarn.

 

“I dropped a stich in that last row!” Hilda grumbles, tugging at her carefully knitted stitches, undoing her work.

 

“Oh no!” Edith says consolingly.

 

“I’ll never be as good as you are at knitting, Edith!” Hilda opines. “Never!”

 

“I drop stitches too, you know.”

 

“You!” Hilda scoffs. “You can knit with your eyes closed, you can. I think you seldom drop a stitch.”

 

“That may be true,” Edith concedes. “But I still do, do it from time to time.” She then adds encouragingly. “And you’re doing it far less than you did when you first started.” She nods towards Hilda’s half completed scarf. “And your tension is so much more even now.”

 

“Thank you, Edith.” Hilda purrs, smiling proudly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as you, but I am getting better.”

 

“Of course you are, Hilda. I think it was a jolly good idea of yours to join Mrs. Minkin’s knitting circle.”

 

“Thank you Edith.”

 

“If for no other reason,” Edith smiles cheekily at her friend. “That one day, one of the ladies there might just introduce you to the most handsome and eligible bachelor brother you’d ever hope to meet.” She makes cow eyes************* at her friend and bats her eyelashes.

 

“Oh you!” Hilda hisses. “You’re hopeless, Edith!”

 

The two girls burst out laughing, happily enjoying the joke and the ease that comes with one another’s company after knowing each other for so long.

 

“Anyway, enough about all that! What about your beloved Miss Lettice,” Hilda asks. “Where has she gone now?”

 

“Over to her Aunt’s house, to try and smooth over the romance novelist Madeline St John. Apparently, she and Miss Lettice had quite a to do. Ms St John promised me some signed copies of her books, which I love. I hope Miss Lettice hasn’t jeopardised that!”

 

“Oh, I do hope not, Edith! Signed copies of Madeline St John’s novels! Cor!” Hilda breathes. “Lucky you!”

 

“I know! Lucky me, if I ever get them!”

 

*The statue of Peter Pan is a 1912 bronze sculpture of J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton. The original statue is displayed in Kensington Gardens, to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's former home on Bayswater Road.

 

**The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.

 

***The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.

 

 

*****Although legend has it that the expression “robbing Peter to pay Paul” alludes to appropriating the estates of St. Peter's Church, in Westminster, London, to pay for the repairs of St. Paul's Cathedral in the 1800s, the saying first appeared in a work by John Wycliffe about 1382.

 

******Lobster Newberg (also spelled lobster Newburg or lobster Newburgh) is an American seafood dish made from lobster, butter, cream, cognac, sherry and eggs, with a secret ingredient found to be Cayenne pepper. A modern legend with no primary or early sources states that the dish was invented by Ben Wenberg, a sea captain in the fruit trade. He was said to have demonstrated the dish at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City to the manager, Charles Delmonico, in 1876. After refinements by the chef, Charles Ranhofer, the creation was added to the restaurant's menu as Lobster à la Wenberg and it soon became very popular. The legend says that an argument between Wenberg and Charles Delmonico caused the dish to be removed from the menu. To satisfy patrons’ continued requests for it, the name was rendered in anagram as Lobster à la Newberg or Lobster Newberg.

 

*******Before, and even after the Second World War, a great deal could be attained about a person’s social origins by what language and terminology they used in class-conscious Britain by the use of ‘”U and non-U English” as popularised by upper class English author, Nancy Mitford when she published a glossary of terms in an article “The English Aristocracy” published by Stephen Spender in his magazine “encounter” in 1954. There are many examples in her glossary, amongst which are the word “dessert” which is a U (upper class) word, versus “pudding” or “sweets” which are a non-U (aspiring middle-class) words. Whilst quite outdated today, it gives an insight into how easily someone could betray their humbler origins by something as simple as a single word.

 

********In Edwardian times, aspic and jellies were very much in vogue and commonly used in both sweet and savory courses to help chefs and cooks of grand aristocratic households and restaurants to keep foods fresh and appetising. By about 1912, with the advent of industrial refrigeration in restaurants the original use of aspic and jelly was rendered obsolete. Instead, the gelatinous medium provided chefs an opportunity to prepare dazzling visual creations to serve on London tables. This love of presentation and show carried through into the 1920s after the end of the Great War.

 

*********Ivory (known in France as Savon d'Ivoire) is an American flagship personal care brand created by the Procter & Gamble Company, including varieties of white and mildly scented bar soap that became famous for its claim of purity and for floating on water. Over the years, the brand has been extended to other varieties and products. The name Ivory was created by Harley Procter, one of the founders’ sons, who was inspired by the quote "all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces", from Psalm 45 of The Bible. In September 1879, Procter & Gamble trademarked "Ivory" as the name of its new soap product. As Ivory is one of Procter & Gamble's oldest products – it was first sold in 1879 – Procter & Gamble is sometimes called "Ivory Towers", and its factory and research center in St. Bernard, Ohio, is named "Ivorydale". Ivory's first slogan, "It Floats!", was introduced in 1891. The product's other well-known slogan, "99+44⁄100% Pure", which was in use by 1895, was based on the results of an analysis by an independent laboratory that Harley Procter hired to demonstrate that Ivory was purer than the castile soap available at the time.

 

**********A trousseau (now a rather archaic term) was used for a collection of personal possessions, such as clothes, that a woman takes to her new home when she gets married. A trousseau was often built up over many years by a young woman and her family. These days a bridal registry is more likely to fill the gap a trousseau would have filled in the past.

 

***********A camiknicker is a one piece bodysuit which comprises a camisole top, and loose French Knicker style bottom which gained popularity in the 1920s. They’re normally loose fitting enabling the wearer to step into them although some feature pop-studs or buttons at one side to give a more fitted look or a self tie belt to accentuate the wearer’s figure.

 

************Prior to and even after the Second World War, there was a ‘marriage bar’ in place. Introduced into legislation, the bar banned the employment of married women as permanent employees, which in essence meant that once a women was married, no matter how employable she was, became unemployable, leaving husbands to be the main breadwinner for the family. This meant that working women needed to save as much money as they could before marriage, and often took in casual work, such as mending, sewing or laundry for a pittance at home to help bring in additional income and help to make ends meet. The marriage bar wasn’t lifted until the very late 1960s.

 

*************To make cow eyes at someone is a wide-eyed expression meant to discreetly signal otherwise unstated romantic attraction to the one it is directed at.

 

Although it may look life-sized to you, this idyllic outdoor scene is in fact comprised of pieces from my miniatures collection, and the park background in in truth my front garden.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers, and Hilda’s white bleached straw hat adorned with pale pink roses and white feathers, were made by the same unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. Edith’s green handbag and Hilda’s tan one, are handmade from soft leather and are also from her collection.

 

The knitting, which is made of real stitches cast on large headed pins I acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The bench is made by Town Hall Miniatures, and acquired through E-Bay.

 

The brick footbath upon which the bench sits a very special piece, and one of my more recent additions to my miniatures collection. Made painstakingly by hand, this was made by my very dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/), she surprised me with this amazing piece entitled “Wall” as a Christmas gift, with the intention that I use it in my miniatures photos. Each brick has been individually cut and then worn to give texture before being stuck to the backing board and then painted. She has created several floors in the same way for some of her own miniature projects which you can see in her “In Miniature” album here: www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/albums/721777203007....

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