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"Luxury brands, high street stores and beautiful boutiques, we have it covered. Shopping in Edinburgh is a fantastic experience catering to all tastes, styles and budgets"

 

 

{{BSD Design studio}}

NEW items for SL fashion week cycle 3

( RAW PICS)

  

designer / photographer

Babychampagne sass

 

Dear friends and fashionistas,

 

This week, we have launched the new original mesh creations of a bag that comes with items for 6 different professions.

 

2 styles , with and without the props, and 2 pose.

 

For your to match with your work outift.

1- miss architect

2- mr banker

3-miss fashion designer/editor/models

4.-miss photographer

5-miss inteiror designer

6-miss graphic designer.

 

event starts at 2pm friday SLT.

 

taxi here

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blueberry%20Hill/65/79/2002

We are one of the best interior designers and decorators in Dubai. Groundbreaking projects have been accomplished by us. Contact for more information.

View more : www.s3tkoncepts.com/about-s3t-koncepts/

Denver, CO - I have currently been working with an interior designer, who is great to work with, and quite talented. For this shot, I used a Godox AD200 Pro flash pointed directly at the ceiling.

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 are far from Cavendish Mews. We are not even in England as we follow Lettice, her fiancée, Sir John Nettleford Hughes, and her widowed future sister-in-law, Clementine (known preferably now by the more cosmopolitan Clemance) Pontefract on their adventures on their visit to Paris.

 

Old enough to be Lettice’s father, wealthy Sir John was until recently still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. After an abrupt ending to her understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son and heir to the title Duke of Walmsford, Lettice in a moment of both weakness and resolve, agreed to the proposal of marriage proffered to her by Sir John. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them.

 

The trio have travelled to Paris so that Lettice may attend the ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes’* which is highlighting and showcasing the new modern style of architecture and interior design known as Art Deco of which Lettice is an exponent. Now that Lettice has finished her commission for a feature wall at the Essex country retreat of the world famous British concert pianist Sylvia Fordyce, Lettice is moving on to her next project: a series of principal rooms in the Queen Anne’s Gate** home for Dolly Hatchett, the wife of Labour MP for Towers Hamlets*** Charles Hatchett, for whom she has done work before. Mrs. Hatchett wants a series of stylish formal rooms in which to entertain her husband’s and her own influential friends in style and elegance, and has given Lettice carte-blanche to decorate as she sees fit to provide the perfect interior for her. Lettice hopes to beat the vanguard of modernity and be a leader in the promotion of the sleek and uncluttered lines of the new Style Moderne**** which has arisen as a dynamic new movement at the exhibition.

 

We find ourselves in the Jardin des Tuileries**** where amidst the finely clipped square topiaries and brilliant white classical statuary of the gardens, on the lush and well clipped lawns, Lettice sits with Sir John and Clemance enjoying a very fine picnic repast in the warm autumnal sunshine of Paris. Arranged with the assistance of the chefs at the hotel they are staying at, Clemance has arranged a splendid picnic to which she has invited her good friends, Marcel and Léonie Dupont, and to which Sir John has invited some of his own Parisian acquaintances. A red and white gingham picnic rug has been spread across the lawn, and its surface is graced with water crackers, a selection of cheeses, dips, pâtés, breads, pies, pasties, sandwiches and even a dressed lobster and a traditional English trifle. Bottles of the finest French wines and champagnes stick up out of silver wine coolers and cutlery, gilt hotel crockery and glassware glint in the sunlight. Birds twitter in the trees and the distant burble of Paris traffic mixes with the chatter of the voices of visitors to the public gardens. In the middle distance, the Louvre Museum, housed in a palace of the same name, basks in the sunshine.

 

“So, to what pleasures, do we owe the pleasure of your company here in Paris, Mademoiselle Chetwynd?” Monsieur Dupont asks Lettice in slightly laboured and heavily accented English.

 

“We can speak French if you’d prefer, Monsieur Dupont.” Lettice replies kindly with a gentle smile as she tears a piece of bread delicately from a flour dusted roll, casting a shower of white snowflakes into the linen napkin spread across her lap. “I do speak it fluently.”

 

“Marcel is very proud of his command of Anglaise, Mademoiselle Chetwynd.” Madame Dupont proffers in reply with a laugh.

 

“I am,” Monsieur Dupont agrees with his wife, sitting up a little more straightly as he speaks. “I find my command of Anglaise to be useful when doing business with your fellow countrymen. Sadly, I don’t get to practice conversation à la Anglaise enough, Mademoiselle Chetwynd, so I should like to converse in Anglaise with you, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Not at all, Monsieur Dupont.” Lettice agrees, her own smile broadening, as she lavishes her piece of fluffy white roll with a lashing of creamy yellow butter from a silver knife as she speaks. “However, if you get tired of conversing in English, we can always revert to French.”

 

“Merci, Mademoiselle Chetwynd.” Monsieur Dupont replies with a grateful sigh and beaming smile below his small waxed petite handlebar moustache*****. “Vous êtes si gentil.” He holds up his glass of rich, jewel like red wine in a toast to Lettice.

 

“Mon plaisir, Monsieur Dupont.” Lettice replies.

 

“And in answer to your question, Marcel, my future sister-in-law is probably here more for business than pleasure, unlike Nettie and I.” Clemance adds to the conversation as she holds aloft her half-drunk flute of sparkling champagne, which glints in the sunshine. “For whom it is strictly a visit for pleasure.”

 

“Ahh.” Monsieur Dupont remarks with interest. “How so, Mademoiselle Chetwynd?”

 

“Well Monsieur Dupont, I’m visiting Paris so that I can attend the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. My fiancée is escorting me.”

 

“Nettie was looking for an excuse to visit Paris and catch up with old friends.” Clemance adds with a chuckle, using her pet name for her brother, indicating with her glass to Sir John, who sits on the other side of the red and white gingham picnic rug covered in the delicious repast organised by Clemance, surrounded by a few other picnickers, chatting rather intently with a lowered head with a heavily made up peroxided blonde woman in a fashionable fuchsia coloured afternoon frock.

 

“So I see,” Madame Dupont remarks a little dourly as her striking emerald green eyes follow Clemance’s gesture. Her nose crumples almost imperceptibly with distaste as Sir John and the blonde woman laugh at a shared confidence whispered into her ear by him.

 

Lettice’s pretty face clouds just a little as she observes the familiarity that seems to exist between her fiancée and the blonde woman to whom she has yet to be introduced, who arrived late to the picnic with a small coterie of loud and colourful friends who twitter around them like exotic birds. The way the pair’s heads are lowered towards one another, and the closeness of their shoulders seems to imply to Lettice that whoever the blonde woman is, she has been intimate with Sir John. Closing her eyes and quickly shaking her head as if ridding herself of an irritating insect, she tries to dismiss the idea from her mind. Yes, Sir John did come to Paris to meet up with old friends, including a long-standing acquaintance and old flame of his, Cinégraphic****** silent film actress Madeline Flanton, but surely this blonde woman wasn’t her! Sir John promised Lettice that he would never do anything to make her ashamed of him, in public at least. Paris might be freer than London was in relation to propriety and social mores, but surely even he wouldn’t flirt with an old flame like Mademoiselle Flanton in front Lettice in such a public way, would he? Of course not! She shakes her head again to rid herself of the idea. Not every woman Sir John knows is a former lover of his: take Sylvia Fordyce for example. Their relationship, whilst long standing and very close, is strictly platonic.

 

“I’m only here as a chaperone for Lettice.” Clemance goes on blissfully unaware of Madame Dupont’s disapproval of Sir John’s behaviour, breaking Lettice’s train of thought about him and the blonde woman. “But it also gave me an excuse to return to Paris and see you and some of my other friends.” She smiles beatifically at the Duponts. “I miss you all so.”

 

“Then you shouldn’t have left us, cher Clemance!” Mrs Dupont scolds Clemance good naturedly. “You can always come back you know.”

 

“Oh, I know Léonie.” Clemance remarks. “But it’s impossible.” She shakes her head. “After Harrison…” Her voice trails off as she mentions her dead husband and she gulps to gather her composure as unshed tears well in her eyes. “I have lost so much, here in Paris.” She blinks back the tears as she stares meaningfully at Madame Dupont. “No, it’s better if I am in London with Nettie nearby,” She turns to Lettice and smiles bravely. “And my dear Lettice of course.”

 

Lettice knows that Clemance lost her only child, a daughter, Élodie, to diphtheria when she was just twelve years old, but she cannot let on that Sir John has shared this deepest of confidences with her. So, she knows that Clemance has lost not only her husband, but her daughter in Paris, making the city of light and love a very dark place for her future sister-in-law.

 

“Of course, Clemance,” Lettice agrees. “And you will always be welcome to stay with John and I whenever you want. You have a home with us, wherever we are.”

 

“Thank you, Lettice my dear.” Clemance says with a grateful smile, reaching out her left hand and squeezing Lettice’s right forearm comfortingly.

 

“Ahh…” Madame Dupont taps her nose knowingly. “As the future Lady Nettleford-Hughes, you will become the mistress of Rippon Court.” She refers to the old castle built on Sir John’s vast family estate in Bedfordshire.

 

“Oh, I don’t think John and I plan on making Rippon Court our country seat, Madame Dupont.” Lettice responds. “He didn’t seem at all keen on the idea when I couched it.”

 

“Well, that’s hardly surprising.” Clemance adds in a strangulated tone as her face pales.

 

“Why not, mon cher Clemance?” Monsieur Dupont queries before slipping half a water cracker lavished in creamy and rich duck pâté into his mouth.”

 

“Surely it is only right that Sir John and Mademoiselle Chetwynd take up residence in the family estate once they are married, Clemance.” Madame Dupont adds.

 

“Rippon Court does not hold fond memories for either Nettie or myself.” Clemance snaps in an unusual pique of irritation, bristling all over.

 

“I was born in Wiltshire, on my parent’s estate, Glynes.” Lettice quickly adds in an effort to deflect questions away from her future sister-in-law, who is obviously suffering discomfort at the mention of the home she and Sir John grew up in. “Glynes is quite close to Fontengil Park, John’s Wiltshire estate. I’ve never been to Rippon Court before, but John tells me that even though Fontengil Park is smaller, it is more suitable for us. More comfortable. Heating old houses is so expensive nowadays, never mind a castle.”

 

“John and I will have to take you to Rippon Court before you get married, Lettice my dear.” Clemance says with less brittleness in her voice. “Even if you don’t live there, as county gentry, you’ll be expected to participate in events around the local hunt. Unlike our parents, Nettie and I have never enjoyed foxhunting, but the old Nettleford Hunt is as much part a part of the county social calendar as Bonfire Night*******, Christmas, New Year and Twelfth Night********.”

 

“Your brother is très curieux, mon cher Clemance!” Madame Dupont laughs as she reaches daintily for a golden pâté en croûte*********. “How can le gentilhomme Anglaise not like to hunt? It is in your blood, non?” She takes a bite, showing her napkin covered lap in pastry crumbs.

 

“My father would have agreed with you, Léonie.” Clemance replies. “Nettie and I used to say that our parents were born on horses. Father was always a fine rider, a mad keen steeplechaser********** and bloodthirsty hunter.’ She shudders. “Mother was too. They couldn’t understand why Nettie didn’t enjoy, nor have the aptitude for, the outdoor sports they embraced with such gusto. Nettie was a bookworm***********, like me, and we’d bribe our governesses when we were children with promises of good behaviour and no procrastination at bedtime to lie to our parents and say they hadn’t seen us when they came looking for either Nettie or both of us to join in the hunt.” She giggles rather girlishly. “He and I used to hide in one of Rippon Court’s towers where we kept a small library of our favourite books to amuse ourselves for an afternoon of hiding from our parents.” She pauses for a moment and sips some of her champagne. “I wonder if our childhood books are still up there, gathering dust and shrouded in cobwebs?” she ponders. “Lettice my dear!”

 

“Hhhmmm….” Lettice says distractedly.

 

“Lettice, Nettie and I must show you the book tower when we visit Rippon Court in the New Year for the Nettleford Hunt.” Lettice doesn’t reply as her attention is caught by something out of the corner of her eye. Clemance doesn’t notice and continues, focussing upon her friends the Duponts. “However, luckily being the master of foxhounds************ is only a ceremonial role, and Nettie is not forced to mount a horse and take part in the hunt itself. Lettice of course, is a skilled horsewoman, but her role, at least on this first visit to the Nettleford Hunt will be ceremonial too. As the future Lady Nettleford-Hughes, she’ll be restricted to handing out the winners’ trophies.”

 

Clemance’s chattery voice dulls and morphs into a distant undistinguishable burble in her ears as Lettice’s attention is drawn back to her fiancée sitting on the other side of the picnic blanket. She notices a subtle movement on the fabric of the rug close to a plate of finely cut triangle sandwiches garnished with tomato and cucumber. It’s Sir John’s finger and that of the unknown blonde woman. They are discreetly playing with one another teasingly before entwining their little fingers tightly together, hidden from the view of those in front of them by Sir John’s back. A sparkling peridot in a gold ring on the woman’s finger twinkles whilst the sheen of Sir John’s Georgian gold and carnelian************* signet ring*************, bearing the Nettleford-Hughes crest glares in the sunlight, shining in Lettice’s eyes, causing her to blink and look down.

 

“Mademoiselle Chetwynd?” Monsieur Dupont queries.

 

“What?” Lettice asks in a distracted fashion, her attention drawn back to the conversation happing on her side of the picnic, between Clemance and the Duponts.

 

“You never fully answered my question, Mademoiselle Chetwynd.” Monsieur Dupont explains.

 

“Err… what question was that, Monsieur Dupont?”

 

“You never told me why you are visiting the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Mademoiselle. Business or pleasure?”

 

“Well, it’s for business really,” Lettice manages to say with a slightly strangulated voice. “Although I can’t deny that there is a mix of pleasure to be found amidst the business.” She glances back to Sir John and the blonde woman’s entwined fingers, but find that they are no longer interlocked. She quickly returns her attention to Monsieur Dupont’s expectant face. “Thanks to Clemance’s generosity at organising this lovely picnic for us, and introducing me to her old and beloved Parisian friends. She speaks of you both so fondly.”

 

“Pardon moi, but I wouldn’t call that lovely!” Madame Dupont says in disgust, waving an accusing finger at the picnic.

 

For a brief moment, Lettice thinks that Clemance’s guest has seen the intertwined fingers of Sir John and the blonde woman, and she blushes red with embarrassment at the thought. Then she notices that Madame Dupont is actually pointing at a round container sitting on the red and white chequered rug, marked ‘U-Like-It Savoury Cheese’**************, featuring two cherub cheeked children in the label. It houses some individually wrapped triangles of cheese, each one’s tin foil*************** affixed with a different brightly coloured label.

 

“Oh that’s just for Nettie!” Clemance laughs with a sweep of her hand over the container of cheese before taking another sip of her champagne.

 

“Is our cheese not good enough for your frère, ma chere?” Monsieur Dupont asks, a little offended as he raises his hand to his chest, as if wounded by Clemance’s declaration.

 

“Not at all, Marcel!” Clemance assures him quickly. “When he inherited the family title, land and estates, amongst them he inherited a sheep station in Australia, called Rippon Station.”

 

“A railway station?” Monsieur Dupont asks in surprise.

 

“Built just for sheep transportation?” Madame Dupont adds in confusion.

 

“How très peculiar Antipodeans*************** are.” Monsieur Dupont declares as he takes up another cracker lavished with pâté and bites into it.

 

“No, no, Léonie and Marcel!” Clemance explains with a smirk, used to the confusion stirred within her Parisian friends, just as she and her brother had once been confused by some uniquely Australian vernacular. “A station in Australia can mean a railway station as we know it to mean. However, it can also be a name for large swathes of pastural land, like a very large farm.” She chuckles. “I know, it’s a strange term. Nettie and I were just as confused then, as you are now.” She looks at the perplexed looks on her friends’ faces. “Both Nettie and I sailed to Australia after our father died. It took six weeks to get there alone! I think Harrison despaired that I would ever return to Paris. The station, the large farm, is in Victoria. It is looked after by a very competent manager who grazes and breeds cattle for us on the property, and they produce cheddar cheese there. The Australians call it ‘tasty cheese’ rather than cheddar, but call it what you like, it equates to much the same thing. During our stay there, Nettie developed a taste for this uniquely Australian ‘tasty cheese’, pardon my pun. Now when his station sends crates of cheese from Rippon Station to London by refrigerated vessel****************, Nettie always has a few tins of our cheese marketed under the U-Like-It brand sent up to Belgravia for his pleasure. I had this shipped to our hotel in Paris from the London docks a few days ago, once I had settled on the fact that I was going to host this picnic luncheon whilst we were visiting.”

 

The pair of Parisians nod in slightly less confusion.

 

“You still haven’t answered my question, Mademoiselle Chetwynd,” Monsieur Dupont persists.

 

“Oh, that’s because I have been chatting away nineteen to the dozen*****************!” Clemance apologises with an embarrassed gasp. “Please, dear Lettice, tell Marcel why you’re visiting the exposition.”

 

“Well, as I said, I’ve come to view the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Monsieur Dupont.” Lettice says again, politely, trying to focus on his inquisitive middle-aged face, and not be tempted to take her eyes off him and stray back to Sir John and the blonde woman, thus drawing attention to their flirtatious behaviour. “I’m an interior designer in London, you see, and I am an exponent of the modernist and uncluttered Art Deco aesthetic.”

 

“Ahh!” Monsieur Dupont murmurs with interest. “Yes, we are very proud of all that France has on show at the exposition! It’s a symbol of national pride to show the world what the height of fashion is.” he adds proudly. “France, and Paris in particular, has always set the trends for fashion and design.”

 

“Now that Lettice has finished her commission for our friend Sylvia Fordyce,” Clemance pauses. “You remember Nettie’s and my friend the concert pianist who performed at the Casino de Paris******************?”

 

“Oui! Oui!” the Duponts reply enthusiastically.

 

“Well, Lettice is moving on to her next project: a series of rooms for a British politician and his wife in the heart of London.”

 

“Is that so, Mademoiselle Chetwynd?” Monsieur Deupont asks.

 

“Yes,” Lettice replies, blushing at the Frenchman’s intense interest. “Mrs. Hatchett wants me to decorate a series of formal rooms in her new London home, in which to entertain their friends.”

 

“Lettice’s star is on the rise as a society interior designer in London,” Clemance enthuses. “Everyone wants her to design for them. She hopes to beat the small vanguard of this new modern style emerging in London and be a leader in the promotion of the style. Err…” she stumbles. “What did you call it again, Lettice my dear?”

 

“Style Moderne*******************.” Lettice replies rather distractedly as once again her attention returns to Sir John and the blonde woman.

 

The blonde woman laughs overly loudly at something Sir John says and places a hand predatorily upon his upper arm in a most unnervingly familiar way, which only helps to confirm for Lettice that whomever she is, this woman has been her fiancée’s lover in the past, and seems to have easily wound him up in her thrall yet again in the short period of time since she and her coterie of friends arrived to join Clemance’s picnic. She peers more closely at her heavily rouged cheeks with their defined bones and her exotic eyes, made even more so by the dark kohl******************** rimming them. She is not as youthful as Sir John’s current conquest in London, the West End actress Paula Young – more middle aged than twenty something - but as Lettice observes her hand lightly caressing Sir John’s tweed jacketed shoulder with her elegant fingers with their pink painted nails, she perceives that this woman shares the same steely determination as Paula, and whilst she appears on the surface to be jovial and gay in a free and natural way, there is a glibness behind it all that suggests to Lettice that she is a woman who has had to fight for everything she now has, and she knows how to enchant Sir John with her coquettish charms, in spite of her age.

 

“I perceive that you and I may have a fruitful friendship, Mademoiselle Chetwynd,” Monsieur Dupont remarks. “If you intend to pursue your career in interior design.”

 

“Oh, Nettie is very supportive of Lettice furthering her pursuits as an interior designer, Marcel.” Clemance replies.

 

“Indeed, how very forward thinking of him.” Monsieur Dupont opines.

 

“I think it is the businessman in him, Marcel. They say that like is drawn to like, and Nettie saw the determination in Lettice that he has for being successful in business. Isn’t that so, Lettice my dear?”

 

Drawn back to the conversation, Lettice replies with an apology, “I’m afraid I was distracted, Clemance my dear. What did you say?”

 

“I was just telling Marcel that Nettie is very supportive of your career as an interior designer, my dear.”

 

“Oh indeed he is, Monsieur Dupont. He wants me to continue with my interior design business even after I become Lady Nettleford-Hughes.”

 

“Then I really do believe that you and I will have a very fruitful relationship, mademoiselle Chetwynd.” Monsieur Dupont reiterates.

 

“Oh no, mon cheri!” Madame Dupont implores. “No business talk today, please! We are here to have fun and see Clemance and Jean, and meet Mademoiselle Chetwynd!”

 

“Business?” Lettice queries.

 

“My husband is a fabricant de textiles… a fabric manufacturer who specialises in tissue d’ameublement.” Madame Dupont elucidates.

 

“A furnishing fabric manufacturer, Monsieur Dupont?”

 

“Indeed, Mademoiselle Chetwynd.” The Frenchman replies proudly. “You will even see some of my fabrics on display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes when you visit it.”

 

“S'il vous plaît, ne parlez pas de travail, Marcel!” Madame Dupont implores her husband. “Let us just have fun today. Please! No work!”

 

“Oui! Oui Léonie!” he acquiesces. He then notices Clemance’s empty glass. “More champagne, mon cher Clemance?” he asks.

 

“How free you are with my champagne, mon cher Marcel!” Clemance giggles. “Please!” She holds out her glass.

 

“Très certainement!” he replies laughing as he withdraws the bottle from its silver cooler.

 

As Monsieur Dupont tends to Clemance’s and his wife’s glasses, Lettice cannot help but allow her attentions to return to the mysterious blonde woman sitting next to her fiancée on the grass. Solicitous towards her, she happily accepts anything Sir John offers her with a gracious elegance, yet it seems to be all artifice as she smiles a broad painted smile at him, and lowers her lids coquettishly as he refills her flute with champagne from another bottle.

 

“I see that you are taken by our ravissante cinéma chantuse*********************.” Monsieur Dupont’s voice breaks Lettice’s silent observation.

 

“Oh!” Lettice gasps, her hands rising to her cheeks as she feels the heat of embarrassment flush her face at being caught looking so overtly at the blonde woman. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Dupont. How frightfully rude of me.” she apologises to the Frenchman.

 

“Not at all, Mademoiselle Chetwynd.” he assures her with a shake of his head and a gentle smile. “Who could blame the moth for being drawn to the flame? More champagne?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, but immediately begins refilling Lettice’s three-quarter empty flute.

 

“Who is she, Monsieur Dupont?” Lettice asks. “You obviously know her.”

 

“Of course, Mademosielle! Like any red-blooded Frenchman, I know of her.” He cocks his head, looking thoughtfully at Lettice. “But you evidently, do not?”

 

Lettice looks at Monsieur Dupont and shakes her head.

 

“That, is Madeline Flanton, the famous French film star. She has been smouldering across our cinéma screens, and working her way into our hearts, since before the war.”

 

Lettice feels the blood drain from her face just as easily as it was flushed moments ago, as her worst fears, the concern that has been curdling her stomach ever since she noticed the familiarity between her and Sir John, is brought to fruition. Lettice’s mind is suddenly filled with the memory of the conversation she and Sir John had at the Savoy********************** when she first mentioned that she wanted to visit the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. His counter proposal involved him attending the exhibition with Lettice in the mornings, before slipping away discreetly and meeting up with his old flame, Madeline Flanton in the afternoon. Determined not to lose face over this suggestion, Lettice suggested that perhaps she could meet Mademoiselle Flanton as well. Rather than balk at the idea, as she had in her heart-of-hearts hoped he might, Sir John warmed quickly to Lettice’s idea, suggesting that if they both went to Mademoiselle Flanton’s apartment for cocktails, the Parisian media wouldn’t question Sir John visiting her, and any whiff of scandal would thus be avoided. He suggested that after a few polite social cocktails with Mademoiselle Flanton, she and Sir John could escort Lettice out via the back entrance to her apartment into a waiting taxi to return her to the hotel that she, Sir John and Clemance have arranged to stay at, leaving Sir John to spend the rest of the night with Mademoiselle Flanton.

 

Lettice lifts her refilled glass of champagne to her lips and takes a gulp of champagne, rather than her usual ladylike sip. However, rather than tasting refreshing and sweet, the effervescent golden liquid tangs of bitterness, as it roils in the pit of her stomach. And suddenly, everything she was enjoying about Clemance’s picnic in the Tuileries Garden – the delicious spread of food, the warm autumnal sunshine, the birdsong, the pleasant chatter of her companions – all seems suddenly spoilt, and when Mademoiselle Flanton laughs again at something Sir John has said, and she places a hand on his upper arm again, the sound of her guffaws appear harsh, strident and forced.

 

*International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was a specialized exhibition held in Paris, from April the 29th (the day after it was inaugurated in a private ceremony by the President of France) to October the 25th, 1925. It was designed by the French government to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewellery and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. Many ideas of the international avant-garde in the fields of architecture and applied arts were presented for the first time at the exposition. The event took place between the esplanade of Les Invalides and the entrances of the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and on both banks of the Seine. There were fifteen thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries, and it was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The modern style presented at the exposition later became known as “Art Deco”, after the exposition's name.

 

**Queen Anne’s Gate is a street in Westminster, London. Many of the buildings are Grade I listed, known for their Queen Anne architecture. Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner described the Gate’s early Eighteenth Century houses as “the best of their kind in London.” The street’s proximity to the Palace of Westminster made it a popular residential area for politicians.

 

***The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.

 

****"Style Moderne," often used interchangeably with "Streamline Moderne" or "Art Moderne," is a design style that emerged in the 1930s, characterized by aerodynamic forms, horizontal lines, and smooth, rounded surfaces, often inspired by transportation and industrial design. It represents a streamlined, less ornate version of Art Deco, emphasizing functionality and sleekness. It was first shown at the Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts of 1925.

 

****The Tuileries Garden is a public garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the first arrondissement of Paris. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. Since the Nineteenth Century, it has been a place for Parisians to celebrate, meet, stroll and relax.

 

*****A petit handlebar moustache is a smaller version of the classic handlebar moustache. It features the same upward-curling ends, but the overall length is shorter, with the ends typically stopping just before the cheeks.

 

******Cinégraphic was a French film production company founded by director Marcel L'Herbier in the 1920s. It was established following a disagreement between L'Herbier and the Gaumont Company, a major film distributor, over the film "Don Juan et Faust". Cinégraphic was involved in the production of several films, including "Don Juan et Faust" itself. Cinégraphic focused on more experimental and artistic films.

 

*******Guy Fawkes Day, also called Bonfire Night, British observance, celebrated on November the fifth, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Guy Fawkes and his group members acted in protest to the continued persecution of the English Catholics. Today Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in the United Kingdom, and in a number of countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, with parades, fireworks, bonfires, and food. Straw effigies of Fawkes are tossed on the bonfire, as are—in more recent years in some places—those of contemporary political figures. Traditionally, children carried these effigies, called “Guys,” through the streets in the days leading up to Guy Fawkes Day and asked passersby for “a penny for the guy,” often reciting rhymes associated with the occasion, the best known of which dates from the Eighteenth Century.

 

********Dating back to the fourth century, many Christians have observed the Twelfth Night — the evening before the Epiphany — as the ideal time to take down the Christmas tree and festive decorations. Traditionally, the Twelfth Night marks the end of the Christmas season, but there's reportedly some debate among Christian groups about which date is correct. By custom, the Twelfth Night falls on either January 5 or January 6, depending on whether you count Christmas Day as the first day. The Epiphany, also known as Three Kings' Day, commemorates the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

 

*********In French, a pasty is known as "pâté en croûte". Whilst "pasty" can also be translated as "friand" or "tourte" depending on the specific context, if referring to the Cornish pasty, it can be described as a "petit pâté en croûte à la viande et aux pommes de terre".

 

**********A steeplechase is a long-distance race involving both galloping and jumping over obstacles, primarily fences and water jumps. In horse racing, steeplechases involve horses jumping over various obstacles like fences and ditches.

 

***********The term "bookworm" was first used in the mid-1500s, specifically in 1549 in a translation by Thomas Chaloner, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Initially, it referred to the actual insects that would bore into books. Later, around 1580, the term began to be used metaphorically to describe people who spent excessive amounts of time reading, often with a somewhat negative connotation.

 

************A master of the foxhounds is a ceremonial position in foxhunting. The master of foxhounds is the person responsible for the conduct of a fox hunt and to whom all members of the hunt and its staff are responsible.

 

*************Carnelian is a semi-precious gemstone, specifically a reddish-orange variety of chalcedony, a type of quartz. It is known for its vibrant colors, ranging from pale orange to deep reddish-brown, and is often used in jewelry and decorative art. Carnelian has been valued for centuries for its beauty and is also believed to possess various metaphysical and healing properties.

 

**************A signet ring is a type of ring, traditionally with a flat face, that is often engraved with a family crest, initials, or other symbolic design. Historically, these rings were used to seal documents by pressing the engraved face into hot wax, effectively acting as a personal signature. Signet rings have been a symbol of status, family heritage, and personal identity for centuries.

 

***************"U-Like-It" was a brand of cheese made in Australia, marketed to the rest of the world. It contained a variety of cheddars, marketed as "tasty cheese" in Australia. The term "tasty cheese" itself is commonly used in Australia to describe a medium-aged cheddar, and the "U-Like-It" brand was part of this category. The brand is now known as Cheer, and the "U-Like-It" brand was discontinued after the Second World War.

 

**************Tin foil, made from thin sheets of tin, was first commercially produced and used in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. While the term "tin foil" is still used today, it now often refers to "aluminium foil", which replaced tin foil due to its superior properties and lower cost.

 

***************The term Antipodean is used when referring to people or items relating to, or originating from places on the opposite side of the globe, especially Australia and New Zealand.

 

****************Refrigeration on ships began with experimental shipments of chilled and frozen meat in the 1870s, with the first successful voyage occurring in 1878. The Paraguay arrived at Le Havre with five and half thousand frozen carcasses, proving the concept of refrigerated shipping. This was followed by the Strathleven's successful voyage from Australia to London in 1879-1880. The Dunedin's voyage in 1882, carrying a full cargo of refrigerated meat from New Zealand to England, further solidified the viability of refrigerated shipping. By 1900 a worldwide survey indicated 356 refrigerated ships in operation, carrying a variety of cargo. By the mid 1920s, when this story is set, refrigeration on ocean bearing vessels was quite common and reliable, thus making produce from the far-flung corners of the British Empire able to be brought to the heart of Empire in London.

 

*****************We are all familiar with the phrase “ten to the dozen’” which means someone who talks fast. However, the original expression is actually “nineteen to the dozen”. Why nineteen, you ask? Many sources say we simply don’t know, but there are other sources that claim it goes back to the Cornish tin and copper mines, which regularly flooded. With advancements in steam technology, the hand pumps they used to pump out this water were replaced by beam engines that could pump 19,000 gallons of water out for every twelve bushels of coal burned (much more efficient than the hand pumps!)

 

******************The Casino de Paris, located at 16, Rue de Clichy, in the 9th arrondissement, is one of the best known music halls of Paris, with a history dating back to the Eighteenth Century. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it is a performance venue, and not a gambling house. The first building at this location where shows could be mounted was erected by the Duc de Richelieu around 1730, while after the French Revolution the site was renamed Jardin de Tivoli and was the venue for fireworks displays. In 1880 it became the Palace Theatre, which housed shows of different types, including wrestling. It was at the beginning of the First World War, however, that the modern Casino de Paris began to take shape, when the venue was converted into a cinema and music hall. After the bombardments of the First World War caused performances to be interrupted, the revue format was resumed, one which lasted through a good part of the Twentieth Century.

 

*******************"Style Moderne," often used interchangeably with "Streamline Moderne" or "Art Moderne," is a design style that emerged in the 1930s, characterized by aerodynamic forms, horizontal lines, and smooth, rounded surfaces, often inspired by transportation and industrial design. It represents a streamlined, less ornate version of Art Deco, emphasizing functionality and sleekness. It was first shown at the Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts of 1925.

 

********************Kohl is a cosmetic product, specifically an eyeliner, traditionally made from crushed stibnite (antimony sulfide). Modern formulations often include galena (lead sulfide) or other pigments like charcoal. Kohl is known for its ability to darken the edges of the eyelids, creating a striking, eye-enhancing effect. Kohl has a long history, with ancient Egyptians using it to define their eyes and protect them from the sun and dust, however there was a resurgence in its use in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1920s, kohl eyeliner was a popular makeup trend, particularly among women embracing the "flapper" aesthetic. It was used to create a dramatic, "smoky eye" look by smudging it onto the lash line and even the inner and outer corners of the eyes. This contrasted with the more demure, natural looks favoured in the pre-war era.

 

*********************Whilst the chanteuse became a stock character in the film noir genre — a woman singing sultry songs in a smoky nightclub or cabaret — the word simply means "female singer" in French.

 

**********************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.

 

Beautiful as it may be, this decadent and delicious looking picnic on the lawns may not be all it seems, for it is in fact made up of miniatures from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The silver tray of biscuits and crackers in the foreground has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. She also made the silver tray of pâté en croute, the basket of bread, the porcelain tray of tomato and cucumber sandwiches in the background, the footed glass bowl of trifle and the glass dish containing butter. She also made the U-Like-It tin of cheeses. Each wedge of cheese is carefully wrapped up in foil and stuck with a label, just like the real u-like-it cheeses were presented when they were manufactured! Frances Knight’s work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

The dressed lobster and the cutlery came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as did the cutlery and the gilt edged porcelain plates. The champagne flutes also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. Each is made from real, finely spun glass.

 

The bottle of champagne is a 1:12 size artisan miniature made of glass by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, as are the other bottles you see. The champagne bottle has real foil wrapped around its neck, and all are hand made from glass. Each bottle features the label from a real winery in France or Germany.

 

The silver wine cellar in which the champagne bottle sits is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The second wine cellar in the background and the silver water jug are miniature artisan pieces that I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The two large wicker picnic baskets were made by unknown miniature artisans in America. The floral patterns on the top of the one with handles have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside. It came with some miniature handmade placemats and napkins inside including the yellow napkins sitting in the bottom right-hand corner of the photograph.

 

The picnic blanket being used is in reality a corner of one of my gingham shirts, which my partner derisively calls my “picnic blanket shirt”. The grass in the background is real, as this scene was photographed on my front lawn during the height of summer, on a partially sunny day.

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I'm In Need Of An Interior Designer. I Need The Living Room / Dining Room, Office, Laundry Room, Bathrooms, & Outside Done. I'm Willing To Pay But Will NOT Go Higher Than 6K, That's A Ridiculous Price. Anywho, If You're Interested Please Message Me In World : Legitsamantha Resident . Thank You (:

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 Lettice’s oldest childhood chum, Gerald Bruton is visiting. Although also a member of the aristocracy Gerald’s fate is very different to Lettice’s. He has been forced to gain some independence from his rather impecunious family in order to make a living. Luckily his artistic abilities have led him to designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street, a business which, after promotion from Lettice and several commissions from high profile and influential society ladies, is finally beginning to turn a profit. The two are taking tea from Lettice’s beautiful and avant-garde Royal Doulton Falling Leaves tea set whilst they wait for Edith, Lettice’s maid, to prepare a light cold luncheon for them. Across the low black japanned coffee table between them is spread a long papyrus* scroll featuring beautiful and wonderfully colourful Egyptian hieroglyphic writing and images. Arriving in a wooden box also marked with hieroglyphs, it is one of two Lettice has in her possession.

 

“There really are remarkable, Lettice darling!” Gerald enthuses as he runs his hands with reverence across the fine fibrous paper. “And in such condition for something so ancient.”

 

Lettice looks across the table at her friend and laughs loudly.

 

“What’s so funny?” Gerald asks in innocent surprise, glancing up from the scroll at Lettice.

 

“Oh Gerald, you silly thing!” Lettice giggles, raising a dainty hand with prettily manicured nails to her smiling lips. “This isn’t a real Egyptian papyrus scroll! I know some of my clients can afford to have real papyri on their walls, but this is a very well executed imitation!”

 

“An imitation?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide. When Lettice nods, he goes on, “Well, it certainly is an excellent copy, I’d never have known.”

 

“It came from Lancelot de Vries antiques and curios shop in the Portobello Road**.” Lettice elucidates.

 

“Ahh,” Gerald murmurs, settling back in the comfortable white upholstered rounded back of Lettice’s tub armchair. “That explains it then. No wonder it’s so good. Old Lottie,” He casually uses a female nickname*** instead of the antique dealer’s real name, indicating that he knows Mr. de Vries well. “Is so incredibly talented that he could have made a successful career out of forging old masters, if he hadn’t decided to tow the straight and narrow and become an antiques and objet d'art dealer.”

 

“Gerald!” Lettice gasps.

 

“It’s true! Just look at the quality in this piece.” He waves his hand expansively towards the unfurled scroll. “I could have sworn it was the genuine article.”

 

“Well, I don’t know about you, Gerald darling, but I don’t fancy spending the money on a real papyrus scroll from ancient Egypt just to hang on a wall until this Tutmaina**** craze ends.”

 

“So, this isn’t for you then, Lettice darling?”

 

“No. I’m taking this on approval from Mr. de Vries, who just received a shipment of them. He’s selling them in his shop. They race out the door quicker than you can say knife, apparently. I’m going to show these to Mrs. Hatchett and see whether she would like an Egyptian themed reception room.”

 

“Knowing Dolly Hatchett as well as I do, and knowing just how much she admires you and your taste,” Gerald opines. “I think something more oriental,” He waves his hands around Lettice’s drawing room, indicating to her Chinoiserie furniture, her Japanese screen and her Chinese ceramics. “Will appeal to her more.”

 

“But she gave be carte blanche to decorate her suite of rooms as I see fit, Gerald.”

 

“Then why are you asking her for her opinion?” Gerald looks at his best friend with a knowing look. He doesn’t wait for a reply from her. “I’ll tell you why. Because you know that even though she made you that promise, she will want to be consulted. This is a bigger project than ‘The Gables,” He refers to the Hatchetts’ Sussex house in Rotherfield and Mark Cross which Lettice partially redecorated in 1922. “This is all about promoting Charles Hatchett’s power and influence as an MP. Dolly won’t want to set a foot wrong. She knows she can’t afford to as much for her own sake as for Charles’. She has been a social pariah, relegated as the pretty flibbertigibbet Gaiety Girl***** from the chorus line of ‘Chu-Chin-Chow’****** who dared to look beyond her class and marry a successful banker with political aspirations. Now she is a successful MP’s wife, so she needs to show that she has impeccable taste, even if the taste really isn’t her own.”

 

Lettice sighs heavily. “You’re right Gerald darling. It’s true”

 

“Of course I’m right.” Gerald picks up his cup of tea and takes a sip from it. “However, I also know that as such an arbiter of what is fashionable, if you told Dolly Hatchett that you wanted to paint her reception room violent purple with green polka dots because it was the height of fashion, she’d let you, even if she hated it.”

 

“You know I would never do that to anyone, Gerald darling.” Lettice takes up her own cup of tea from the edge of the table which houses her telephone and a vase of fresh red roses from her fiancée, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

“I know.” he assures her.

 

The movement near to them, brings Gerald’s attention to the roses. Nodding at them, he asks, “Are those from your intended?”

 

Lettice looks at the fat blooms with their rich red velvety petals which are dispersed with fluffy white pompoms of Gypsophila****** and considers them, as if seeing them for the first time. “Yes.” she replies rather flatly.

 

Old enough to be her father, Lettice is engaged to be married to wealthy Sir John Nettleford-Huges. His engagement to Lettice came as something of a surprise to London society as he was always considered to be a confirmed old bachelor, and according to whispered upper-class gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. After an abrupt ending to her understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son and heir to the title Duke of Walmsford, Lettice in a moment of both weakness and resolve, agreed to the proposal of marriage proffered to her by Sir John. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them.

 

“What of them?” Lettice goes on.

 

“Oh nothing.” Gerald remarks dismissively with an air of laissez-faire********. “I was just wondering.”

 

“I’ve known you all my life, Gerrald darling.” Lettice shakes her head and looks seriously at her best friend. “You were doing more than wondering. What is it? Come on. Spit it out!”

 

“Well, it’s just that when I was visiting Cyril at Hattie’s recently, Hattie showed me a book that had belonged to her mother. It’s called Floral Symbolica*********. She thought I might like to read it because it discusses the meaning of flowers, so that when I gave Cyril a bouquet of blooms, it would express my love for him.”

 

“And?” Lettice smiles.

 

“Well, dark red roses like those, are supposed to represent a more sophisticated and serious affection than a bright red rose, expressing eternal love, loyalty, and a heartfelt devotion.”

 

“And?”

 

“Oh look!” Gerald sighs sadly. “There’s no nice way for me to tell you this, but Cyril is friends with Paula Young, who I know is your intended’s latest conquest.”

 

Lettice’s heart begins to race at the mention of the young and pretty West End actress’ name. With a slight tremor, she lowers her teacup back into its saucer. “I know that too, Gerald darling. You know I do. John has been very forthright and honest about that facet of his life, and I know he won’t stop.”

 

“Well, Cyril knows about it too, and of course he knows through me that you and Sir John are engaged to be married.”

 

Lettice gulps as a shudder runs through her and she feels the blood drain from her face. “But how does he know about Miss Young and John?”

 

“Through Miss Young herself, I assume. From what Cyril’s mentioned about her, she is something of a parvenu, and she is rather indiscreet about her discretions. He told me as much the other night when I stayed with him at Hattie’s.”

 

“Oh no!” Lettice gasps, raising her hands to her cheeks which suddenly feel hot to the touch as they fill with embarrassed colour. “But Cyril is coming to Sylvia’s weekend house party now, and so are John and I! Oh Gerald!” Tears well in her eyes and threaten to spill over.

 

Gerald immediately thrusts his cup noisily back into its saucer and leaps up with sudden urgency. He scuttles around the low coffee table and wraps his arms around Lettice, pulling her to his chest as the tears start to spill from her sparkling blue eyes.

 

“Don’t worry, dear Lettice.” Gerald assures her. “I’ve spoken to him. I’ve told Cyril in no uncertain terms that he can’t mention that he knows anything about Sir John’s and Miss Young’s liaison to anyone, especially at the party, and that he is to keep mum**********.”

 

“Oh Gerald!” Lettice sobs. “John promised me that he would never do anything to shame me in public as far as his…” She intakes a large gulp of air. “His dalliances.”

 

“Well,” Gerald says in defence of Sir John, gently chuckling sadly as he strokes Lettice’s back comfortingly through her French blue cardigan***********. “I suppose he doesn’t imagine that you would ever know a poor West End musician who just happens to be a friend of sorts with his latest flame.”

 

Lettice sniffs and pulls a clean and freshly laundered lace trimmed handkerchief from the left-hand sleeve of her cardigan and dabs at her eyes and nose, as Gerald crouches down in front of her, so that he can look her squarely in the face.

 

“He won’t, will he?” She sniffs again.

 

“Cyril?” Gerald asks. When Lettice nods shallowly he goes on, “No of course he won’t. I know that he may not be the most discreet of people, but I really have made it perfectly clear to him how important it is that he doesn’t let on about any of it. For all his faults, he likes you very much, Lettice, and he’d never want to embarrass or hurt you.”

 

“Well, if you’re sure.” Lettice gulps again.

 

“Of course I am, Lettuce Leaf!” he replies, using his childhood nickname for her, which he knows she hates, in order to try and break her moment of worry by introducing a note of levity.

 

“Don’t call me that Gerald! You know how I hate it!” she replies.

 

“That’s better.” Gerald smiles. “Now dry those eyes. Luncheon will be ready soon, and you don’t want to sit at the table all red and puffy eyed, do you?”

 

Just at that moment, Lettice’s Bakelite************ and chrome telephone starts to ring and jangle on the small side table next to her.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

Both Lettice and Gerald glance with startled eyes at it in alarm, as though it has overheard their conversation and has an opinion of its own to express.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

Lettice sniffs and takes a deep intake of breath. “I suppose it would be rather awful of me to expect Edith to answer the telephone when I’m right alongside it, wouldn’t it?”

 

“Beastly, Lettice darling!” Gerald replies.

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

“You know how she feels about that ‘infernal contraption’,” Gerald goes on quoting Lettice’s maid’s name for the telephone. “If you must irritate her, please do so after she’s served us luncheon. I don’t know about you, but I can barely boil a kettle, never mind cook a meal.”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

Gerald pauses and considers something. “Then again, maybe you should make her answer it. She might get so upset by having to do so, that she’ll hand in her notice.”

 

BBBBRRRINGGG!

 

Lettice sniffs again and dabs her eyes for good measure as she goes to lift the receiver.

 

“And, if she does give notice,” Gerald quickly adds as Lettice grasps the receiver. “I’ll hire Edith as a seamstress for my atelier. Her talents as a needlewoman are wasted here.”

 

“Not a chance!” Lettice replies defiantly. “She’s coming with me, not going with you.”

 

BBBBRRR…

 

Lettice picks up the handset out of its gleaming chrome cradle mid ring, causing the shrill jingle of the telephone to stop and quickly peter out.

 

“Mayfair 432,” Lettice announces in clearly enunciated syllables.

 

As Gerald returns to his tub chair, he can hear a deep male voice resonate from somewhere down the line, recognising them as Sir John’s tones, not that he can make out the words. The shock of knowing the man he and Lettice were just talking about is on the other end of the telephone call makes him freeze for a moment as a shiver runs up his spine.

 

“John darling!” Lettice exclaims almost a little too jovially. “How are you?” She listens to the response. “Oh, that’s good. Are we still having dinner at Le Bienvenue************* tonight?” She listens again. “Oh hoorah. Jolly good.” Sir John’s voice speaks again at the other end of the line, his tone serious. At length he pauses. “Oh no! Oh, poor Clemance. I must pay a call upon her then and do some sick visiting.” Sir John speaks up urgently. “Oh very well John. I won’t.” He speaks again. “No of course, John darling. You’re quite right. I don’t want to get sick before Sylvia’s party. I’ll telephone the Regent Street Flower Box directly and arrange for Monsieur Blanchet to send her a lovely bunch of flowers to brighten her day. You know Gerald and I were just talking about the meaning of flowers, John darling.” Sir John speaks again. “Yes. Yes, he’s here. We’re about to have luncheon, so I can’t speak for too long.” Lettice listens again. “Yes… yes… what about the party?” Sir John’s voice drones on, too indistinctly for Gerald to hear anything, and he feigns that he is not paying attention by looking down at his well manicured nails and rubbing them as if trying to buff them with the pads of his fingers on the opposite hand. “Oh.” Lettice sighs and her shoulders slump. “You want to ask her then do you?” Sir John speaks again. “Oh you did, John dear?” He mumbles something else. “She did? That was very kind of Sylvia to consider me like that.” There is more indistinct chatter at the other end of the telephone line. “Well,” Lettice tries to muffle a resigned sigh. “Well, if you feel you must, then I suppose you must.” Sir John’s voice seems to perk a little and he sounds less dour. “No. No, I don’t mind. Of course I don’t, especially if it will make you happy, dear John.” Gerald can see a light dim in her eyes. “Very well. Alright…” she falters for a moment and gulps. “I’ll see you at eight then.” she adds a little too brightly. “Yes, goodbye then.”

 

Lettice hangs the handset back on the cradle, the action causing the telephone to utter a single echoing ting as she does. She stares ahead of her, but her look is blank, suggesting that she sees nothing.

 

“What was that all about?” Gerald asks in concern as he looks at Lettice’s suddenly wan face.

 

“It was just John.” Lettice replies flatly.

 

“Yes, I could gather that, Lettice darling. What did he say?”

 

“Clemance is sick in bed with a nasty head cold. The doctor has told her to stay abed and keep warm to avoid it going to her lungs, so she won’t be coming to ‘The Nest’ now.”

 

“Oh, that is a pity. I was so looking forward to meeting Sir John’s sister. You speak of Mrs. Pontefract so highly.”

 

“So now, since Clemance isn’t coming,” Lettice continues, speaking as though she hasn’t heard Gerald talk. “He’s decided to invite Paula Young to come and spend the weekend with us.”

 

“What?” Gerald sits bolt upright in his seat.

 

“Yes. He asked Sylvia if she would mind, since she knows about his affair with Miss Young, and he feels that the rarified artistic company in attendance will be quite fine with his little arrangement of having both his fiancée and his mistress in the same house at the same time.”

 

“And what did Sylvia say to that?”

 

“Well, Sylvia is a bit of a free spirit when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, and matters of love and lust. She said she didn’t mind if he did ask Miss Young to join him, but only under the proviso that John asked me and got my permission first.”

 

“Which you evidently granted.” Gerald replies in breathless disbelief.

 

“I did.” Lettice replies flatly.

 

“You could have said no, Lettice. You should have said no!”

 

“Oh, how could I, Gerald darling?”

 

“Very simply.” he replies, folding his arms akimbo over his muted toned Fair Isle jumper************** and looking sternly at his best friend. “No darling, I’m sorry but you can’t invite that trollop*************** you share your bed with most nights to Miss Fordyce’s party.”

 

“I can’t Gerald darling.” Lettice defends.

 

“Well, I think you can. Just telephone him back right now. Where is he? Belgravia? His club?”

 

“He’s at home in Belgravia.”

 

“Well then, telephone him immediately and just tell him you’ve had a change of heart, and that no, Miss Young can’t come to the party at ‘The Nest’.”

 

“It’s not that simple, Gerald darling.” Lettice tries to explain, attempting to speak whilst using all her power to prevent herself from crying again. “This engagement is complex. John doesn’t want jealousy in his relationships. He certainly doesn’t want a jealous wife. He told me from the start that he has no intention of desisting from his dalliances, and that if I said yes to his proposal, I must accept him on those terms. He’ll be furious if I tell him no, now. It will be like me flying in the face of everything I agreed to when I said yes to him.”

 

“You don’t actually have to go through with it, you know, Lettice darling?”

 

“What? Going to stay with Sylvia at ‘The Nest’? I can’t Gerald darling! She’s throwing this party to show off her new feature wall. I’m her guest of honour. I can’t possibly withdraw so late in the piece, and with no real reason to decline. It would be rude, and undignified.”

 

“No, Lettice!” Gerald replies dourly. “I mean, you don’t have to go through with the marriage to Sir John. You are perfectly entitled to break it off, if you feel so inclined.”

 

“And risk the fury of Mater?” Lettice looks at Gerald in alarm and shakes her head vehemently. “No thank you! I think I’d rather put up with a hundred Miss Youngs than Mater in a black mood over my lack of securing an eligible husband! All the time she is investing in wedding plans. If it is all for naught, she will be fit to be tied! She sent me a clipping from the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser**************** a few weeks ago.”

 

“Why? What did it say?”

 

“Jonty Hastings is getting married.”

 

“Howley Hastings is getting married?” Gerald guffaws, using the childhood nickname given Jonty Hastings by he, Lettice and the other children of the big houses in the district who used to play with him, because of his propensity to cry whenever he was teased about anything. “Who’d want to marry Howley Hastings?”

 

“Sarah Frobisher apparently, according to the article.” Lettice replies.

 

“Sarah Frobisher? Sarah Frobisher?” Gerald ruminates, rolling the name around his mouth and off his tongue as he considers where he has heard that name before. “Wasn’t she that rather horsey looking niece of the Miss Evanses?” He refers to the two elderly genteel gossipy spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house, in Glynes village at the foot of Lettice’s and his family estates in Wiltshire. “You know, the gawky one with protruding teeth and spectacles who always laughed nervously whenever a boy spoke to her. Her father was in trade*****************. Yes, the Frobisher Clothing Mills in Trowbridge.”

 

“Yes, I think that’s her.”

 

“Well, those two deserve each other then, if you ask me, if she’s still as gawky now as she was when we were children. They can dance the Wibbly Wobbly Walk***************** together into the happily ever after, and good riddance to them both.”

 

“Oh! That’s cruel, Gerald. Don’t be beastly!” Lettice chides her best friend sharply. “You aren’t a spiteful person.”

 

“Well,” Gerald mumbles contritely. “You have to admit that Howley can’t dance. Think about your poor trampled feet the last time you had to dance with him. Why on earth did Sadie send you a clipping about Howley marrying that Frobisher creature?”

 

“I think to highlight the fact that another one of the few eligible bachelors she was able to find to invite to her 1922 husband hunting Hunt Ball for me is no longer eligible. Pickings are slim.”

 

“All I am saying, Lettice darling,” Gerald goes on kindly. “Is that, slim pickings or not, if you’re not going to be happy in the end, I happen to think that marrying Sir John is a mistake. An unhappy and loveless marriage isn’t worth it.”

 

“Now don’t you start too, Gerald!” Lettice quips. “I have enough problems with Margot and Dickie trying to dissuade me from marrying John. Even Cilla seems lukewarm about the idea, and John’s almost like an honourary uncle to her.”

 

“I’m not!” Gerald defends, holding up his palms. “I only said ‘if’. If has a great deal of meaning and implication for such a tiny word, you know. For example: if however, you think you will be happy with your lot in life with Sir John, marry him. As I have said to you before, I cannot even marry the person I love.”

 

“Oh yes, how foolish of me.” Lettice replies. “Forgive me for wallowing.”

 

“There is nothing to forgive, Lettice darling. You’re my best friend! I only want you to be happy.”

 

“Thank you, Gerald darling.” Lettice replies gratefully. “Meanwhile, now you can tell your Cyril that he won’t need to bite his tongue and keep his own counsel quite so much, if Miss Young is going to be at ‘The Nest’. John will be all over her, I’m sure. And if he isn’t, from what I can gather from John, she certainly will be.”

 

“Well,” Gerald sighs. “That will certainly enliven what is already going to be a rather lively weekend, I suspect.”

 

At that moment, Edith walks into the drawing room.

 

“Luncheon is served, Miss.” she announces with a bob curtsey.

 

“Thank you, Edith.” Lettice says gratefully.

 

“Yes, thank you Edith.” Gerald adds. “It’s good of you to feed me at such short notice.”

 

“Oh, it’s no trouble, Sir.” Edith replies with a beaming smile, thankful at Gerald’s recognition of her efforts. “It’s always a pleasure to have you at Cavendish Mews.”

 

As Lettice and Gerald both stand, and Edith turns to go, Gerald stops her. “By the way, Edith?”

 

“Yes Sir?” she asks, stopping and looking back at him.

 

“How’s your sewing going?”

 

“My sewing, Sir?” Edith asks, perplexed.

 

“Gerald!” Lettice cautions her friend.

 

“Yes, your frock making. Have you made anything new lately?”

 

“Oh,” Edith replies with a happy sigh and a smile. “It’s going well, thank you for asking, Sir, especially since Mrs. Boothby’s so…” She quickly swallows the word son, as she isn’t sure whether Lettice knows that the old Cockney charwoman****************** who comes to Cavendish Mews from Poplar every few days to help Edith with the harder housekeeping jobs, has a son, never mind a disabled one. “Found me a sewing machine. Now I don’t have to go to my Mum’s to do any sewing or alterations. I can do them here in my room.”

 

“Very good Edith. And have you made anything lately?” Gerald persists. “A new frock, perhaps?”

 

“Oh no, Sir.” Edith replies. “But I did make myself a lovely new white blouse with a Peter Pan collar******************* and black buttons a month ago now. I wear it on my days off quite a bit at the moment.”

 

“Well,” Lettice says breezily with a sigh. “That’s all very interesting, Edith, but Mr. Bruton and I have held you up and away from your chores long enough. You may go. We can serve ourselves since it’s just a casual cold luncheon for two today, so there is no need for you to wait table.”

 

“Yes, Miss. Very good, Miss.” Edith bobs another curtsey and scuttles away through the adjoining dining room and disappears through the green baize door that leads to the service area of the flat.

 

“Spoil sport.” Gerald mutters.

 

“I told you, Gerald.” Lettice repeats. “Edith isn’t for turning. When I get married, she’ll be coming with me.”

 

“I don’t think she’ll fancy being buried in the Wiltshire Downs, Lettice darling.”

 

“Perhaps not, Gerald darling, but I think she’ll quite enjoy an elevated position as housekeeper of John’s and my Belgravia townhouse after I become Lady Nettleford-Hughes.”

 

“You are positively Machiavellian sometimes, Lettice darling.” Gerald concedes in defeat as he proffers Lettice his arm.

 

The two walk out of the Cavendish Mews drawing room and into the dining room, where a cold luncheon of galantine of fowl******************** with a fresh garden salad await them on the dining room table.

 

*Papyrus paper is called papyrus, named after the Cyperus papyrus plant from which it is made. The word "papyrus" itself refers to both the plant and the writing material created from its stems. Documents written on this material are also referred to as papyri.

 

**Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill, London, is a world-famous street market known for its antiques, vintage clothing, and diverse food stalls. It's one of London's oldest markets, dating back to the Nineteenth Century. The market stretches along Portobello Road, from Westbourne Grove to Golborne Road, and is particularly vibrant on Saturdays.

 

***Historically, queer slang emerged as a way for queer people to communicate discreetly, forming a sense of community and shared identity. Using female names or terms could be a way to signal belonging within this coded language. It was also used for protection, allowing homosexual men to talk about one another discreetly in public without the implication of homosexuality and the repercussions that came with it as a criminal act.

 

****Tutmania was a worldwide media frenzy and cultural obsession that followed the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter and his team, sparking a popular fad for ancient Egyptian art, design, and culture in the Western world and a resurgence of national pride in Egypt itself. Egyptian motifs appeared on clothes, jewellery, hairstyles, fabrics, furniture and in architecture, and it helped solidify the Art Deco movement of design with its clean lines. The discovery of the tomb itself was one of the most significant archaeological finds of the Twentieth Century, made the previously lesser-known pharaoh one of the most famous figures in history.

 

*****Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

******‘Chu Chin Chow’ is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was the most popular show in London’s West End during the Great War. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the 3rd of August 1916 and ran for 2,238 performances, a record number that stood for nearly forty years!

 

*******Gypsophila, known commonly as Baby’s Breath, is a genus of flowering plants in the carnation family. They are native to Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Turkey has a particularly high diversity of Gypsophila, with about thirty-five endemic species. Some Gypsophila are introduced species in other regions.

 

********Laissez-faire is the policy of leaving things to take their own course, without interfering.

 

*********‘Floral Symbolica; or, The Language and Sentiment of Flowers’ is a book written by John Ingram, published in London in 1870 by Frederick Warne and Co. who are perhaps best known for publishing the books of Beatrix Potter. ‘Flora Symbolica; or, The language and Sentiment of Flowers’ includes meanings of many species of flowers, both domestic and exotic, as well as floral poetry, original and selected. It contains a colour frontispiece and fifteen colour plates, printed in colours by Terry. John Henry Ingram (November the 16th, 1842 – February the 12th, 1916) was an English biographer and editor with a special interest in Edgar Allan Poe. Ingram was born at 29 City Road, Finsbury Square, Middlesex, and died at Brighton, England. His family lived at Stoke Newington, recollections of which appear in Poe's works. J. H. Ingram dedicated himself to the resurrection of Poe's reputation, maligned by the dubious memoirs of Rufus Wilmot Griswold; he published the first reliable biography of the author and a four-volume collection of his works.

 

**********We usually associate the term “to keep mum” with the Second World War, when it was a byline used on posters to dissuade gossip and the inadvertent sharing of vitally confidential for the war effort with fifth-columnists. However, the word "mum" meaning to be silent, not to speak, first appeared in William Langland's Fourteenth Century poem Piers Plowman, though the full phrase "mum's the word" gained popularity in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. The word itself is onomatopoeic, derived from the "mmm" sound made by a closed mouth.

 

***********French blue is a sophisticated, deep blue colour that is characterized by its muted quality, subtle violet or grey undertones, and a rich, smoky depth, reminiscent of classical French design, the Mediterranean sky, or the deep blue uniforms of historical French soldiers.

 

************Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

*************Le Bienvenue is the former name of L'Escargot, which is London's oldest French restaurant. Georges Gaudin opened Le Bienvenue at the bottom of Greek Street in Soho in 1896. He became famous for serving snails, and was reportedly the first in England to do so. Le Bienvenue even featured a snail farm in its basement, a unique talking point for customers. In 1927, two years after this story is set, Gaudin moved to larger premises at 48 Greek Street, the current location, in a Georgian townhouse built in 1741 which was once the private residence of the Duke of Portland and a pastoral getaway in what was then a rural part of London. When he moved, patrons of the restaurant encouraged him to rename it after his most popular dish, leading to the name L'Escargot.

 

**************Fair Isle is a traditional knitting style used to create patterns with multiple colours. It is named after Fair Isle, one of the Shetland Islands. Fair Isle knitting gained popularity when the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle jumpers in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular colour.

 

***************The term "trollop" was introduced in the early 1600s, with the earliest known evidence of its use appearing in the writings of George Wither in 1615. The term, a noun, was already established in the English language by that time.

 

****************The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser is weekly newspaper which serves the towns of west Wiltshire, including Trowbridge. Printed in Trowbridge it was established in 1854 by Benjamin Lansdown, as The Trowbridge and Wiltshire Advertiser. Benjamin was born in Trowbridge and was the son of a woollen mill employee but this was not the path he wished to follow and he was apprenticed as a printer alongside Mr John Sweet. He bought a hard press and second-hand typewriter before starting his own newspaper, along with establishing his own stationery shop in Silver Street around 1860. He moved the business into 15 Duke Street around 1876. Duke Street became home to the impressive R. Hoe & Co printing press that allowed printers to use continuous rolls of paper, instead of individual sheets, to speed up the process and countless copies of the newspaper rolled off the press at Duke Street for many years. The newspaper was based there for more than one hundred years and the business remained within the Lansdown family for generations until it was finally sold in the early 1960s. Over the years in had various names including The Trowbridge and North Wiltshire Advertiser from 1860 until 1880, The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser from 1880 until 1949, The Wiltshire Times between 1950 and 1962 and The Wiltshire Times & News between 1962 and 1963. It then became known as the Wiltshire Times – the banner it holds today. In 2019, the Wiltshire Times and its sister paper the Gazette & Herald moved to offices on the White Horse Business Park in North Bradley, stating that its Duke Street building was no longer fit for purpose. These offices later closed in 2020 as the three Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns struck. The Wiltshire times is still serving the local community both in a paper and an online format with a small team of journalists who passionately believe in the value of good trusted journalism and providing in-depth local news coverage.

 

****************The term to be “in trade” most commonly means engaging in commercial activity, such as regularly buying, selling, or offering goods or services as part of a business. It can also refer to the goods themselves (stock-in-trade) kept by a business for sale, or a characteristic skill or behaviour consistently used in a particular line of work. Used as a slur by the British upper-classes, “in trade” implied that because a man had to work for his living, even if he was a steel magnate or something equally successful, he was not as good as, and would never be a gentleman, who traditionally did not work to earn money. Money and money talk was considered vulgar by the upper-classes. A man who was “in trade” would never marry the daughter of an aristocrat or member of the landed gentry.

 

*****************‘They All Walk the Wibbly Wobbly Walk’ is a song written by Paul Pelham and J. P. Long sung by the famous British music hall performer Mark Sheridan in 1912. It was a song often sung during the Great War, and associated by the British general public with the survivors of the conflict who trembled due to shell shock or had misshapen walks thanks to injuries inflicted upon them.

 

******************A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

*******************A Peter Pan collar is a style of clothing collar, flat in design with rounded corners. It is named after the collar of Maude Adams's costume in her 1905 role as Peter Pan, although similar styles had been worn before this date. Peter Pan collars were particularly fashionable during the 1920s and 1930s.

 

********************A galantine of fowl is a traditional French cold dish made from a deboned fowl, typically chicken, which is stuffed with a forcemeat (a mixture of ground meats and other ingredients), then rolled into a cylindrical shape, and poached in stock. It is served cold, often coated in a clear, gelatinous aspic, and can be elaborately decorated with ingredients like pistachios, truffles, and vegetables.

 

This 1920s 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:

 

The boxed and unboxed Egyptian papyrus scrolls you see on Lettice’s black japanned coffee table are 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Famed for his books, Ken Blythe also made other miniature artisan pieces from paper, including these scrolls, which can be fully wound out to reveal Egyptian hieroglyphics. To make a pieces as authentic as this makes them true artisan pieces. Most of the Ken Blythe books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. 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, and a great many pieces from his daughter from his estate. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Lettice’s tea set sitting on the coffee table is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era called “Falling Leaves”.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples.

 

The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

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 are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden visiting the home of Edith’s, Lettice’s maid, beloved parents. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her younger brother Bert all their young lives. Since her father’s promotion in 1922, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now. The money she makes from this endeavour she uses for housekeeping to make she and George’s life a little more comfortable, but she is able to hold back a little back as pin money* to indulge in one of her joys, collecting pretty china ornaments to decorate their home with.

 

We are in Ada’s front parlour, which is where most of her decorative porcelain finds from different shops, fairs and flea markets around London are proudly displayed. With busy stylised floral wallpaper and every surface cluttered with ornaments, it can only be described as highly Victorian in style, and it is an example of conscious consumption, rather than qualitative consumption, to demonstrate how prosperous the Watsford family is, especially now that George holds the management position that he does. Like many others of its kind in Harlesden and elsewhere in London, it is the room least used in the house, reserved for when special guests like the parish minister or wealthy old widow and the Watsford’s landlady, Mrs. Hounslow, pay a call. However today’s special guest is not either the minister, nor Mrs. Hounslow. It is Frank Leadbetter, Edith’s beau, who has arranged to visit Edith’s parents on his own, as he has a very important question to ask of them both.

 

Dressed in his Sunday best suit, Frank sits awkwardly in one of two Victorian high backed barley twist chairs. The combination of the formality of his suit and the hard and uncomfortable horsehair upholstery of the chair encourage Frank to sit with a ramrod stiff back in his seat. He looks awkwardly around the room, allowing his gaze to flit in a desultory fashion around the unfamiliar surrounds of the Watsford’s formal front parlour. Cluttering the surface of an old Victorian sideboard and an ornate whatnot, the cold stares of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and the current King George V and Queen Mary stare out from the glazed surfaces of plates and other objects celebrating coronations and jubilees, whilst on the mantle, flanked by pretty statues of castles and churches, younger versions of George and Ada in sepia pose formally with Edith as a little girl and Bert as a baby, gazing out from brass frames with blank stares. Frank coughs awkwardly and nervously tugs at his stiff collar, feeling hot even though there is no fire going in the small grate of the fireplace.

 

“Now, now, young Frank!” George booms good naturedly from the one comfortable seat in the room, an old armchair with thick red velvet button back** upholstery. “No need to be nervous, me lad!”

 

“Oh, you don’t know why I’m here, Mr. Watsford.” Frank replies, running his right index finger nervously around the inside of his collar.

 

George chuckles. “I think I can guess, Frank.”

 

Frank gazes down at Ada’s dainty best blue floral china tea set on the lace draped octagonal table set between the cluster of chairs. A selection of McVitie’s*** biscuits brought home by George from the nearby factory sit in a fluted glass dish.

 

“Will Mrs. Watsford be long, do you think, Mr. Watsford?”

 

“I shouldn’t think so, Frank. She’s only gone to boil the kettle and fill the pot.”

 

As if knowing that she was being spoken about, Ada sweeps through the door of the parlour, holding aloft the glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid that Edith bought for her as a gift from the Caledonian Markets****. “Here we are then,” she says with a heightened level of exuberance. “Tea for three!” She carefully places the teapot in the centre of the tea table.

 

“Perfect timing, Ada love.” George replies, and without waiting, reaches across the void between him and the tea table and snatches up a biscuit.

 

“George!” she chides. “Where are your manners?” She looks askance at her husband, who settles back in his seat, quite unperturbed by his wife’s scolding. “Guests first.” She sweeps her hand across the table towards the biscuits as she lowers herself precariously onto the edge of the other high backed barley twist chair. “Frank?”

 

“Err… umm…” Frank stutters. “Ahh, no… no thank you, Mrs. Watsford. I… I’m not hungry.”

 

“Oh well, more for us then, Ada love.” George says cheerfully through a biscuit filled mouth, stretching out his hand to the glass dish again.

 

“George!” Ada cries, slapping her husband’s hand sharply, the sound echoing around the cluttered parlour.

 

George retreats in his seat, recoiling and rubbing his chastised hand rather like a dog nurses a limp paw.

 

“Shall I be mother then*****?” Ada asks rhetorically as she automatically picks up the milk jug. “You take milk, don’t you Frank?”

 

“Err… yes, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank replies as she slops some milk into his cup before adding a dash to her husband’s and her own.

 

“And sugar?”

 

“Err.. two please, Mrs. Watsford.”

 

“Ahh, a sweet tooth after my own heart.” Ada replies with an indulgent smile, putting two heaped teaspoons of sugar into Frank’s cup before adding one to George’s and two to her own. “Now!” she sighs, taking up the cottage ware teapot pouring tea into the cups. “You wanted to talk to us, Frank?”

 

“Well…” Frank begins.

 

“You know it feels jolly funny having you here Frank, but not Edith.” Ada interrupts the young man even as he begins. “I’m quite used to you coming with Edith now.”

 

“Well, you know… I… I really wanted this to be a conversation that I had alone with you and Mr. Watsford,” Frank indicates to George, still licking his wounds. “Mrs. Watsford. So, I asked Hilda to take Edith out shopping today.”

 

“And she isn’t missing you, Frank?” Ada queries, as she replaces the pot in the middle of the tea table.

 

“Err…” Frank blushers, heaving and puffing his cheeks out. “Well, I told Edith a bit of a tall tale. I said that I had to help Giuseppe, my chum with his restaurant in the Islington****** today.”

 

“Oh yes,” Ada remarks with a tone of distaste as she hands George his cup of tea. “Giuseppe. He was your Italian friend who gave you the wine that we shared that first time we met, wasn’t he?”

 

Frank blushes red at the painful memory of that first rather awkward Sunday luncheon he had at the Watsfords’ when he and Ada had had a disagreement about some of his beliefs about life. “Yes.”

 

“My, my.” Ada takes up her own cup of tea and cradles it in her lap as she smiles to herself. “Such subterfuge to be alone with us.”

 

“You might not enjoy poor Frank’s discomfort quite so readily, Ada.” George pipes up from his seat as he sips his tea, tempering his wife.

 

“I was merely asking a question, George love.” Ada replies with a smug smile.

 

“No you weren’t, and you know it.” George retorts. “You were bringing up difficult memories of that awkward first tea we all had together, when you know perfectly well that we have all come a long way from there.” He gives his wife a doleful look. “Stop raking over old coals that don’t need to be raked over.”

 

“I agree, George.” Ada replies calmly. “We have come a long way; however, I was merely reminding Frank that in spite of that, we still have some concerns about his philosophies about life.”

 

“You have concerns, Ada love. I don’t.”

 

“Well one of us has to, if Frank has come here asking for Edith’s hand.” Ada turns her attentions to their young guest. “That is why you are here, isn’t it, Frank?”

 

“Well… I…” Frank stammers.

 

“Of course it is, Ada love. Frank?” George asks, sitting up in his seat.

 

“Well yes, Mr. Watsford. That’s what I came for. I came to formally ask for Edith’s hand in marriage.”

 

George leaps from his seat, dropping his half drunk cup of tea into the tea table noisily, sloshing tea into the saucer in his haste, before he bustles around the small black japanned cane table on which a vase of flowers stands before patting Frank on the back. “Of course! Of course! We’d be delighted, wouldn’t we Ada?” He turns and beams at his wife before turning quickly back to Frank without waiting for a reply. “What took you so long, Frank my boy?”

 

“Well Mr. Watsford, I know Edith and I have been stepping out for a while now,” Frank explains, sighing with relief and smiling at George’s exuberant acceptance of his request for Edith’s hand. “But I wanted to have a few things in place before I asked you.”

 

“Jolly good! Jolly good!” George chuckles delightedly. “Have you got a ring yet?”

 

“I’m not quite there yet, Mr. Watsford, but I’m getting there. I… I also wanted to assure you that my intentions are genuine. I… I love Edith and I don’t want anyone else.”

 

“Well, of course you don’t, lad!” George puffs, rubbing the young man’s right shoulder comfortingly. “We knew the moment we saw you together, that you two were made for each other, didn’t we Ada?”

 

Ada doesn’t reply immediately.

 

“Oh, this is wonderful, Frank!” George shakes Frank’s hands, barely able to contain his joy. “Welcome to the family!”

 

“Now just hang on for a moment.” Ada’s voice cuts in, slicing the joy with its sharp edge. “Let’s not rush into this without a few clarifying things first.”

 

“What?” George asks. He snorts preposterously. “Whatever do mean, Ada love? Frank’s just said his intentions are good. I don’t need anything more than that.”

 

“Well I do.” Ada replies calmly.

 

“What… what is… is it, Mrs. Watsford?” Frank asks, his voice quavering with nerves.

 

“Now, if you’d both just sit down for a moment,” Ada says, replacing her cup on the table, indicating for the two men to resume their seats.

 

Deflated, both Frank and George return to their respective seats.

 

“Now, Frank,” Ada starts, leaning forward in her seat. “I would just like to say that in principle, I am as pleased as my husband is that you’re asking for Edith’s hand in marriage.”

 

“Then Ada…?” George begins, but his wife silences him by holding up the palm of her hand to him.

 

She goes on. “I’d already had words with Edith about the two of you eloping.”

 

“Oh I’d never do that to you, Mr. Watsford or my Gran, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures her, looking earnestly into her unreadable face.

 

“Yes, I’m glad to hear it, as it confirms what Edith said, which was the same as you.” Ada turns to her husband. “Prospects?”

 

George looks quizzically at his wife. “Prospects?”

 

“Yes, prospects!” Ada’s eyes grow wide as she looks knowingly at him. She lowers her voice and whispers, “Remember, we discussed this?” When he looks uncomprehendingly at her again, she adds in a hiss, “When I said you’d go all doolally******* over Frank’s proposal, which you have?”

 

“Oh!” George pipes up. “Oh yes!” He sits up in his seat and turns to Frank. “Now young man, Both you and Edith have told us that you’re trying to improve your lot in life.” Ada scoffs from her seat. Ignoring her, he asks, “What are your prospects for Edith, once you’re married?”

 

“Well, it is true that I am trying to improve my circumstances. It’s one of the reasons why I have held off asking for Ediths hand until now. Like I said, I wanted to get a few things in place before I did.”

 

“Such as?” George’s bushy eyebrow arches over his right eye as he asks.

 

“Well, as you both know, I’ve been doing extra duties at Mr. Willison’s to build up my skills. I don’t want to be a delivery boy all my life.”

 

“No of course not, lad!” George pipes up.

 

“George!” Ada exclaims. “Let the boy finish. I want to hear what he has to say, not you.”

 

“Err… no, of course not.” George blusters. “Go on, Frank.”

 

“Well, I’ve been doing a bit of window dressing and arranging of products for Mr. Willison. I’ve also been taking a correspondence course on bookkeeping, which Edith doesn’t know about.”

 

“Why not?” Ada snaps.

 

“Because I wanted to complete it first and show that I’ve applied the skills before I told her: rather like a surprise, Mrs. Watsford.”

 

“Alright Frank.” Ada softens. “And have you?”

 

“Well, it’s a bit hard to get Mrs. Willison to relinquish anything about the shop’s books, but I did manage to do a bit of bookkeeping earlier this month when she was poorly and in bed. Technically she gave the task to her daughter, Miss Henrietta, but she wanted to do other things in her spare time, so it was reasonably easy to convince her to give it over to me to do, and Mrs. Willison did admit that I did a good job of it.”

 

“Well that’s something, isn’t it Ada?”

 

Ada nods in agreement with her husband, but keeps looking at Frank with an observant stare.

 

Frank continues. “And I’ve been tapped on the shoulder by friends of mine who are part of a trades union.” An uncomfortable look begins to cloud Ada’s features at the mention of unions. “And they tell me that soon there might be an opening or two in one of the suburban grocers for an assistant manager position, which would lead eventually to a position where I’d be running my own corner grocer.”

 

“In Metroland********?” George splutters. “My daughter all the way out there?”

 

“It’s not so bad, Mr. Watsford. The Chalk Hill, Grange and Cedars Estates are all built along the railway line not too far from Wembley Park, so Edith would be able to visit you easily, and you’d be able to come and visit us too. We’d live in a nice little flat above the shop with indoor plumbing and all electrified.” Ada tuts at the mention of electricity, but Frank continues to paint a vision of his and Edith’s rosy future. “The children we have, your grandchildren can grow up attending local schools and getting lots of fresh air.”

 

“Well, since you put it like that, I guess it’s not so bad, is it Ada?”

 

“Well,” Ada purses her lips. “I’m sure that Edith has told you that I hold no faith in that newfangled electricity, but living in Cavendish Mews she seems to have become a convert.”

 

“And a lovely new estate is far healthier for any children that we have, Mrs. Watsford. It’s far better than living in a house in Clapham Junction.”

 

“And how much will this flat of yours cost?” Ada asks seriously.

 

“Around five shillings a week for a two-up two down******** semi********* in the Chalk Hill Estate, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank says, gaining strength in his convictions, filling his voice with a new boldness and surety. “And, if we were to live in a flat above the grocers’ shop, it would be even less, and we’d still have all the modern conveniences like hot and cold running water and an inside privy.”

 

“Nothing wrong with an outdoor privy.” remarks George.

 

“Nothing wrong with an indoor one, either, Mr. Watsford. I only the best for Edith and our children.”

 

“Alright, young Frank.” George backs down.

 

“Now, going back to what I had eluded to before, Frank,” Ada continues. “You’re a good lad, Frank Leadbetter, and I can see that by your thoughtfulness and your manners. I know you love our Edith, and you obviously treat her very well…”

 

“As she deserves, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures her.

 

“I know, Frank.” Ada tempers him. “However, the vehemence with which you spurn your new ideas around is still a bit frightening to me.”

 

“Oh, there’s nothing to be frightened of Mrs. Watsford.”

 

“But these labour unions of yours…” Ada’s voice trails off.

 

“I can assure you, Mrs. Watsford, the unions aren’t bad, and I am not a Communist.” Frank defends himself. “As I said just before, I only want the best for Edith and for the family I hope we will have together. I just want a better world for all of us, and the unions will help with that. However, I swear that I’m not associated with any of those militant factions that popped up after the Russian Revolution. I believe in peaceable actions, discussion and compromise.” Frank looks earnestly at Ada. “I would never put Edith in any danger. I’m a hard working man who just wants a good future. Some of the finer details of it may be different to yours and Mr. Watsford’s, Mrs. Watsford, but at the end of the day, our ideals are the same, and whatever I do, Edith and her wellbeing is central in everything I do, and everything I have planned.”

 

Ada sighs and smiles. “Alright Frank. So long as she is, I can only give you my blessing too.”

 

“Oh thank you, Mrs. Watsford!” Frank exclaims, standing up and walking over to Ada who rises from her seat and embraces Frank kindly.

 

“Good lad!” George says, standing up as well and beaming over his wife’s shoulder, winking at Frank.

 

He reaches down and snatches up two more biscuits from the fluted glass bowl on the tea table.

 

“George!” Ada scolds, not quick enough to catch him this time.

 

He smiles back at her gormlessly.

 

“At this rate I’m going to have to let out that vest of yours, George Wastford!” Ada remarks.

 

George turns to Frank. “Are you sure you want the joy of these moments of wedded bliss, Frank my boy?” he asks jokingly.

 

*Originating in Seventeenth Century England, the term pin money first meant “an allowance of money given by a husband to his wife for her personal expenditures. Married women, who typically lacked other sources of spending money, tended to view an allowance as something quite desirable. By the Twentieth Century, the term had come to mean a small sum of money, whether an allowance or earned, for spending on inessentials, separate and in addition to the housekeeping money a wife might have to spend.

 

**Button back upholstered furniture contains buttons embedded in the back of the sofa or chair, which are pulled tightly against the leather creating a shallow dimple effect. This is sometimes known as button tufting.

 

***McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

 

****The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

*****The meaning of the very British term “shall I be mother” is “shall I pour the tea?”

 

******The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.

 

*******Doolally is British and Irish slang for a person who is eccentric or has gone mad. It originated in the military.

 

*******Metroland is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north-west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the Twentieth Century that were served by the Metropolitan Railway. The railway company was in the privileged position of being allowed to retain surplus land; from 1919 this was developed for housing by the nominally independent Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited (MRCE). The term "Metroland" was coined by the Met's marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London until the Met was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933.

 

********Two-up two-down is a type of small house with two rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs. There are many types of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, and these are among the most modest. The first two-up two-down terraces were built in the 1870s, but the concept of them made up the backbone of the Metroland suburban expansions of the 1920s with streets lined with rows of two-up two-down semi-detached houses in Mock Tudor, Jacobethan, Arts and Crafts and inter-war Art Deco styles bastardised from the aesthetic styles created by the likes of English Arts and Crafts Movement designers like William Morris and Charles Voysey.

 

*********A semi-detached house (known more commonly simply as a semi) is a house joined to another house on one side only by a common wall.

 

This cluttered and old fashioned, yet cosy front parlour may look realistic to you, however it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my childhood.

 

You may think that by 1926 when this story is set, that homes would have been more modern and less Victorian, and many were. However, there were a lot of people during this era who grew up and established their homes during the reign of Queen Victoria and did not want to update their homes, or could not afford to do so, so an interior like this would not have been uncommon in the 1920s and even in the lead up to and during the Second World War.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The old fashioned high backed Victorian chairs with their barley twist detailing and brass casters were made by Town Hall Miniatures

 

Ada’s collection of commemorative plates of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 and the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911 on the sideboard and the whatnot are all made by the British miniature artist Rachel Munday. The plate of Edward VIII on the far left is a piece of souvenir ware from around 1905 and is made of very finely pressed tin.

 

The bust of Queen Victoria was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It has been hand painted by me.

 

The Victorian Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) vase in the centre of the fireplace has been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys.

 

The Watsford family photos on the mantlepiece are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are from various suppliers, but all are metal.

 

The church and castle statues at either end of the fireplace are made of resin and are hand painted. They came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Sitting on the central pedestal table is the cottage ware teapot Edith gave her mother as a gift a few years ago. Made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.

 

Also on the table, the glass dish of biscuits is an artisan piece. The bowl is made from real glass with the biscuits attached and hand painted. It came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The teacups, milk jug and sugar bowl also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.

 

Ada’s wicker sewing basket, sitting closed to show off its pretty florally decorated top, has knitting needles sticking out of it. The basket was hand made by Mrs. Denton of Muffin Lodge in the United Kingdom.

 

The fireplace, the whatnot, the central pedestal table, the embroidered footstool by the fireplace, the brass fire irons and the ornate black japanned cane table on which Ada’s sewing box stand also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.

 

The sideboard is a piece I bought as part of a larger drawing room suite of dolls house furniture from a department store when I was a teenager.

 

The collection of floral vases on the bottom two tiers of the whatnot came from an online stockist of miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The vase of flowers are all beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase.

 

The little white vase in the forefront of the photo is mid Victorian and would once have been part of a tiny doll’s tea service. It is Parian Ware. Parian Ware is a type of biscuit porcelain imitating marble. It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured, white Parian marble, used since antiquity for sculpture. I have had it since I was about ten years old.

 

The ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and the painting on the wall come from online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures, as does the Art Nouveau vase on the left hand side of the picture.

Alacritys is pune’s Best interior designers with top expertise in architecture. Redesign your home & commercial property with our Top architects & Decorators.

Time to call in the interior designer(?)

Perfection is the first word that comes to my mind each time I look at Beastiegirls' stream. It is just incredible how simply stunning Georgia's every single decor looks. Everything comes to place so beautifully, looks as it was meant to be exactly like this from the beginning and couldn't be more perfect, but I can tell you that it's not that simple at all to achieve such a result. It takes a lot of time, ideas, creativity, patience and talent. Georgia has an eye for design, beauty, fashion, but also for all things small and and everything she touches becomes absolutely lovely. Let yourself dive into her sweet dolly wold and enjoy!

 

More: www.blythe-doll-fashions.com/2012/04/27/blythe-interior-d...

  

This iPhone Background (640x960 wallpaper) is released under a Creative Commons license.

If you like this image, please leave a comment. Thanks!

 

How do I get this onto my iPhone?

There are a number of ways to do this, however I think the easiest and fastest way is to download Flickr’s free app. Within the Flickr app you surf over to my photo feed to view the images (if you make me a contact then I’ll appear in the flickr contact list). When you find one you like, just click the download button and save the image directly to your phone. Quick & Simple!

 

I don’t have an iPhone. Can I still use it on my phone?

As of this writing this image (960 x 640) should be large enough to be used as wallpaper with the Droid / Android, BlackBerry, Windows 7, and iPhone.

 

How did you make it?

This background was made using graphic design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Filter Forge, Genetica, Wacom, Alien Skin, Topaz Labs, as well as several other programs.

 

About Patrick Hoesly:

I’m a graphic illustrator, specializing in architectural illustrations and graphic design. I work with Architects, Interior Designers, and Landscape Architects, to help them visualize and sell their designs ...Or in other words... I make the fun/cool images!

Check out my Blog at ZooBoingReview.blogspot.com

Also take a look at my website at www.ZooBoing.com

 

We have not given much thought to the colours in our living room...

Yesterday I had an operation on my left eye. This morning the bandage was removed. After a while my sight came back and I was surprised how beautiful colours can bee (If your eyes are OK)

"Luxury brands, high street stores and beautiful boutiques, we have it covered. Shopping in Edinburgh is a fantastic experience catering to all tastes, styles and budgets"

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 are north of Cavendish Mews, beyond St John’s Wood, over the far side of Regent’s Park and London Zoo, past Primrose Hill in the affluent middle-class suburb of Swiss Cottage, named for the ornately gingerbreaded Swiss style cottage orné* of the Swiss Cottage Inn**, past which Edith, Lettice’s maid, is walking as she heads from Swiss Cottage railway station*** towards Strathray Gardens. Having eschewed her usual pleasurable pursuits with Hilda, or a visit to her parents on her usual Wednesday morning off, Edith has an appointment in the smart upper middle-class London suburb. She trudges down the rain slicked concrete footpaths beneath the bare branches of the plane trees that run down either side of the Victorian red brick villa lined streets, following her own hand written instructions as to how to reach Strathray Gardens from the underground railway station. The branches above look stark against the slate grey skies.

 

For the last few weeks, unable to contain her own excitement and curiosity, in a desperate attempt to try and get some inkling as to when Frank will propose to her, Edith has been corresponding with, according to her advertisement in the newspaper, a “discreet clairvoyant” named Madame Fortuna, at Box Z 1245, The Times, E.C.4., whom she has now discovered is in reality, a woman named Mrs. Fenchurch who lives in Strathray Gardens in Swiss Cottage.

 

As Edith walks past the smart old fashioned two and three storey red brick villas with their undulating façades built in the 1880s and 1890s, Edith cannot help but feel a sense that she is interloping – that she is being stared at and scrutinised through the lace curtains dressing and obscuring the windows, that she is being judged by the upper middle-class housewives sitting in their drawing rooms and morning rooms overlooking the relatively quiet streets, as she goes on her way to what she now considers as she gets closer to it, may be a ridiculous assignation.

 

Finally, she stops before an intimidating three storey Modern Gothic/Queen Anne revival style house of red brick with Tudoresque style gabling, gothic style tracery painted in white around its leadlight windows, and large bays crowned by a crenelled balconette, overlooking the empty tree lined street. Now Edith feels a sense of trepidation as she stands on the threshold of the drive that leads up to the front steps. Leaning against the stone gothic finial capped brick newel post that flanks the half circle carriageway, she fishes the rather old fashioned Art Nouveau postcard of a woman and flowers from her green leather handbag and consults the spidery, yet elegant writing on the reverse. She looks at the number on the post next to her. She looks up at the house again. The address is definitely the correct one. She sighs and takes a deep breath to give herself courage before walking across the carriage turn and up the five steps, trying to gain the confidence of her convictions which she suddenly doesn’t feel as she steps beneath the white painted gothic style vestibule portico and presses the gleaming brass call bell by the white painted front door flanked with panels of stained glass. At first there is no response to her ring. Just as Edith’s resolve starts to fail her and she turns to leave and retreat like a defeated and foolish girl to Cavendish mews, a light goes on inside the hallway, illuminating the lozenges of stained glass around the front door, showing off their bright colours.

 

The door is suddenly opened by a rather rangy looking maid with an angular face, dark button eyes and a thin, downturned mouth. She is dressed in a morning uniform of pale blue and white striped calico, topped with a mob cap with a trim of crisply goffered lace, which is all too familiar to Edith who has her own version of the same uniform hanging up in the narrow wardrobe of her maid’s room in Cavendish Mews.

 

“Yes?” the maid asks sharply, looking Edith up and down with an appraising gaze.

 

Edith suddenly feels a fraud and shabby to boot dressed in her black three-quarter length coat from a Petticoat Lane**** second-hand clothes stall that she has remodelled, beneath the wiry maid’s beady, hard gaze. Taken aback by the domestic’s hostile look and brusqueness, Edith doesn’t answer.

 

“Yes?” the maid asks again, cocking an eyebrow as her lips purse in irritation.

 

“I… err…” Edith stammers.

 

“Oh no!” the maid says, mistaking Edith’s dour winter coat and black cloche decorated with purple satin flowers. “No thank you Miss. We’ve already members of the congregation of St. Peter’s Belsize Park*****. We’ve no wish to join your Fellowship.”

 

As she goes to close the door, Edith in an act of daring that surprises both she and the domestic she faces, she quickly puts her foot, clad in her best black kid cross strap shoe, in the jam, stopping the maid from closing the door in her face.

 

The uniformed maid looks down at Edith’s offending shoe and scowls. “Get your foot out of my door!” she snaps in a curt hiss, staring vehemently at Edith. “If it’s converts you’re looking for, I told you we aren’t interested.”

 

“Who is it, Trudy?” comes a quavering, elderly female voice from somewhere close by inside the villa.

 

“No-one Madam.” the maid calls back quickly in a loud and jovial sing-song voice, never taking her eyes of Edith’s face as she does. “Just another Quaker****** from Hampstead*******.”

 

The maid says again, “Get your foot out of my door!” She considers Edith’s outfit: smart, but obviously homemade or cobbled together with a bit of apt dressmaking. Reassessing Edith’s reason for visiting a determined steely tone enters her already hostile tone as she says, “If its work you’re looking for, you’ll find none here. Madam has a cook, and me as her parlour maid, and that’s all she needs. Now go away.”

 

“I’m here to see Mrs. Fenchurch.” Edith suddenly blurts out awkwardly like an admission of guilt, before adding insistently in a slightly lower and imploring tone of voice, “I’m here to see Madame Fortuna.” The name she adds emphasis to in an effort to explain to the gatekeeping domestic the reason for her presence on the doorstep.

 

The maid looks up, startled at Edith’s pronouncement, her eyes growing wide in what Edith perceives to be fear or perhaps concern. Still, rather than trying to crush her toe in the door, her stance eases slightly and she steps aside. “Come inside.” At first Edith doesn’t stir, remaining mute and immobile until the maid hisses, “Quickly girl, before the neighbours see you standing there!”

 

The domestic’s words create a result as like a tin toy when it is wound, Edith springs into action and steps across the threshold of the house into a large entrance hall tiled in black and white patterned tessellated pavers and panelled in white painted wood. A steep staircase with a dark runner held in place by shining brass stair rods******** leads upstairs, whilst a round table in the middle of the hall is covered in local circulars, several of the big London newspapers, including The Times, and a copy of the Tatler********* around a rather large aspidistra********** with glossy green leaves in a majolica jardinière***********. Against a wall, a large grandfather clock sonorously ticks the minutes away seriously.

 

“I’m nothing to be ashamed of.” Edith opines as she responds to the last remark of the truculent domestic. “I have every right to be here.”

 

“We’ll see about that. Name?” the maid snaps in a surly fashion, ignoring Edith’s statement as she glares at her.

 

“Edith.” Edith replies simply.

 

The domestic gasps with frustration, her eyes rolling to the ceiling above. Sighing with irritation she asks again, “Edith what?”

 

“Edith Watsford,” Edith replies nervously. “Miss Edith Watsford.” she corrects herself. She pauses for a moment before continuing in an uncertain fashion, “I’ve… I’ve corresponded with Madame Fortuna via The Times… and… and this is the time we agreed on that I should call upon her.”

 

“I don’t wish to know what you and Madam have corresponded about!” the maid says tersely. “Sit there.” She points sharply, indicating to a hard wooden hall chair sitting against the white wooden panelled wall. She turns on her heel and then turns back again suddenly. Pointing her finger at Edith this time she adds with a grim look, “And don’t move.” She then turns again and carefully opens a door pulled to that leads off the hallway into the downstairs room with the bay window overlooking the street.

 

Doing as she is bid, Edith sinks meekly onto the seat and waits, listening to the constant tick of the clock, and the muffled sound of the conversation between the maid and her mistress – the woman with the quavering voice. Leaning forward on her seat, Edith tries to listen to what is being said in the next room, but sitting against the far wall on the opposite side to the hall, and too frightened by the warning from the domestic to move closer, she cannot make out what is being said.

 

Finally, the door opens and the maid appears again. “Come in.” she says grimly, stepping aside. “Madam will see you now.”

 

Nervously Edith gets up from the hard hallway seat and walks across the entranceway, her low heels clicking noisily across the tiles. “Thank you.” she says politely to the maid as she slips apprehensively past the older woman.

 

“Miss Watsford?” the quavering voice Edith heard before asks as she steps into the room.

 

Edith finds herself in a rather overcluttered drawing room with a lofty ceiling. The salon is gloomy and stuffy in spite of the large bay window Edith saw from the street because what light manages to enter has to filter through a set of wooden venetian blinds and a set of thick red velvet hangings with a bobbled gold tassel trim, the stuffiness added to by very heavily patterned floral wallpaper. It is filled with heavy Jacobean revival furniture fashionable in the 1890s when the villa would have been built, with all the chairs and sofas jostling for space with one another upholstered in red velvet in an equally outmoded button back************ style. Every surface is cluttered with a lifetime of knick-knacks conspicuously displayed. Edith suddenly feels a pang of sadness for the poor maid standing at the door. No wonder she is crochety, having to dust all these objects by herself, if what she says is true and there only being a cook and herself to do all the domestic chores.

 

“Well, don’t stand at the door, letting in the draught, Miss Watsford,” the elderly female voice chides, but in a kindly manner, like an indulgent grandparent. “Please do come in and sit down.”

 

It is only then that Edith realises that Mrs. Fenchurch, or rather Madame Fortuna as she knows her, is seated in the bay in a high backed red velvet button backed Victorian armchair drawn up to a round table draped with a fine lace tablecloth and topped with another large aspidistra with glossy leaves. The woman’s appearance is as old fashioned as her décor, and she has, in common with many elderly women of her age, retained the hairstyle fashionable in her youth, some fifty years or so ago, her almost white tresses coiled at the back and covered in a dainty lace cap in a long obsolete fashion. Her black bouclé silk************* dress with its gigot sleeves************** and high, stiff neck is tightly corseted and is at complete odds to the contemporary and practical, loose style Edith wears and appears at least thirty years out of date. A large cameo is fastened at her throat, and she peers at Edith through a gold rimmed pince-nez***************, yet her eyes, unlike her maid’s, are friendly and her jowly face sitting above her embroidered collar is open and looks kind with a welcoming smile on her lips.

 

“Please, Miss Watsford,” the elderly lady says again, indicating with a sweeping gesture to a matching ballon button backed red velvet salon chair opposite her at the table. “Do take a seat.” She turns her attention to her maid. “We’ll have tea thank you, Trudy,” She glances quickly at Edith, appraising her through the lenses of her pince-nez before looking back at her servant. “Without the strainer, I think.”

 

“Yes Madam.” Trudy replies obsequiously.

 

“And some biscuits if you can manage it.” she adds.

 

As the door closes softly and Trudy’s footfalls on the tiles in the hallway fade into the distance, the old woman lets out a sigh of relief and smiles broadly at Edith. “You mustn’t mind dear Trudy, Miss Watsford,” she says gently in her genteel, upper-class tones. “She can be a little terse, but that’s only because she doesn’t approve of my endeavours as Madame Fortuna, and she worries for our reputation as a respectable household in the neighbourhood, and our standing in the St Peter’s parish congregation.”

 

“I see.” Edith remarks, looking around her.

 

“But she’s good to me, and she allows me my indulgence.” Mrs. Fenchurch observes Edith’s wide eyes and slightly sagging mouth with mild amusement. “Are you quite alright, Miss Watsford?”

 

“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry!” Edith stammers in an embarrassed apology, realising that she has been caught looking agog at her surroundings. “Yes quite.” She pauses. “Umm… how should I address you? Mrs. Fenchurch or Madame Fortuna?”

 

“Whichever you feel more comfortable with.” Mrs. Fenchurch answers. “But most clients call me Madame Fortuna.”

 

“Then I’ll do the same if you don’t mind, Madame Fortuna.” Edith says with a sigh of relief as she peels off her gloves.

 

“Not at all, my dear Miss Watsford.” When she notices Edith’s eyes straying about the room in a desultory way again, Mrs. Fenchurch asks with a good natured chuckle, “Not quite what you were expecting from Madame Fortuna?”

 

“Well, I… I really don’t know, Madame Fortuna.”

 

“Perhaps you were expecting a cauldron, a book of spells and spiderwebs in the corners of the room?” Mrs. Fenchurch asks tongue-in-cheek. “Trudy would never let the latter occur, although she might permit me the former.”

 

“Oh no!” Edith quickly defends. “I wasn’t… well… well I don’t rightly know what I was expecting Madame Fortuna.” It is then that she notices a rather large glass sphere sitting in a footed ebonised wooden stand just to Mrs. Fenchurch’s left, partially obscured by the bulbous white porcelain planter and leaves of the aspidistra. “What’s that?” She points across the table towards it.

 

“This?” Mrs. Fenchurch turns her head and looks to where Edith is indicating. She smiles proudly and her eyes light up. “This, my dear Miss Watsford, is my crystal ball.”

 

“I thought only gypsies at fairs had them,” Edith pauses for a moment before quickly adding, “Not that I’ve ever seen one before, myself. What do you use it for, Madame Fortuna.”

 

The older lady runs her palm over the ball’s surface closest to her hand in a rather intimate and loving action. “My crystal ball aids me in my art of clairvoyance.” she says rather mysteriously. “I can gaze into it, and sometimes I can see shapes and light that help me to foresee possible outcomes of future events.”

 

“Goodness! Even on a winter’s day like today, Madame Fortuna?” Edith asks. “It’s awfully dark in here.”

 

“Well, I do have other clairvoyant aids that I can use.” Mrs. Fenchurch replies. “Like these.” She indicates to a deck of red and white patterned cards stacked in the middle of the table, adjunct to the potted aspidistra.

 

“Playing cards?” Edith queries.

 

“No, my dear, Miss Watsford, although playing cards can be used to tell fortunes. No, these are special fortune telling cards.” She places her palm on the deck. “How do you feel about me using them to answer the questions you have?”

 

Edith sits ramrod in her seat, clutching her green handbag and looks with startled eyes at the cards, as though they are about to explode or catch fire.

 

“No, I thought not.” Mrs. Fenchurch says kindly. “I think you and I will have some tea and get to know one another a little better, and then I’ll read your leaves. How does that sound, Miss Watsford?”

 

“Oh!” Edith sighs with relief. “Oh yes, that sounds much better, Madame Fortuna. There used to be an old woman down the street from us in Harlesden who used to read people’s tea leaves.”

 

“Is that where you come from, my dear? Harlesden?”

 

“Yes, Madame Fortuna. I was born in Harlesden. My Dad works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory there as a line manager.”

 

Just at that moment, the door to the drawing room opens and Trudy returns carrying a wooden tray holding a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two cups, as well as a small glass dish of biscuits.

 

“And thinking of biscuits, here comes Trudy with our tea.” Mrs. Fenchurch smiles up at her maid, who with bowed head, avoids the gaze of either her mistress or Edith as she unpacks the tray with a serious face. As Trudy places the biscuits on the table’s surface, Mrs. Fenchurch asks, “I don’t suppose that selection is McVitie and Price’s, Trudy?”

 

The domestic stops what she is doing and looks with a crumpled look of concern at the older lady. “No Madam!” she exclaims. “They’re Huntley and Palmers****************, like always.” She looks quizzically at her employer. “Why do you ask?”

 

“It’s just Miss Watsford here, comes from Harlesden,” Mrs. Fenchurch says with a proud smile. “And her father works for McVitie and Price.”

 

Trudy doesn’t respond to her mistress’ revelation as to Edith’s family background, nor look at the younger woman. Instead, she says to Mrs. Fenchurch in a business like fashion, “No strainer, Madam, like you requested.”

 

“Thank you Trudy. That will be all for now.” Mrs. Fenchurch waves her hand through the air dismissively. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

 

“Yes Madam.” Trudy replies obsequiously, bobbing a curtsey and quickly retreating from the room.

 

“Do you mind frightfully if I smoke, Miss Watsford?” Mrs. Fenchurch asks. “I know it probably isn’t what you expect from a lady like me either, but it was recommended to me by my doctor. I found it calmed my nerves during the zeppelin raids in the war, but has become another rather pleasurable indulgence in the ensuing years.”

 

“It’s your house, Madame Fortuna.” Edith replies, even though she isn’t particularly enamoured by the habit. “But what have you to be nervous about? I’m the one who’s nervous.”

 

“Thank you my dear.” Mrs. Fenchurch takes a small red Morocco leather case from the tabletop and flips it open. She removes a thin cigarette and lights it before blowing a plume of tumbling smoke in the opposite direction to Edith. “We all of us, have our quirks, and I suppose a dose of nerves before one of my clairvoyant sessions is one of mine.” She slips the cigarette into the notch on the rim of the ashtray and leaves it to slowly burn. “And there is no need for you to be nervous with me. Now, shall I be mother***************** then, Miss Watsford?” she asks, picking up the silver pot, which Edith notices is badly tarnished. Seeing her critical look at the state of the pot, the older woman goes on. “So, you’re not a teacher then. You’re a domestic.”

 

Edith’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “Goodness! However, did you know that? Did your crystal ball tell you Madame Fortuna?”

 

Mrs. Fenchurch smiles as she pours tea into Edith’s blue and white floral patterned cup. “I could lie and say yes, Miss Watsford, but I don’t believe in my line of business, that lying is a good thing. Don’t you agree?” she asks rhetorically.

 

“No, Madame Fortuna.” Edith replies unnecessarily.

 

‘It was the way you looked at my teapot that betrayed you.” Mrs. Fenchurch goes on. “Trudy looks at it the same way whenever she raises the idea of polishing it with me. I tell her I won’t have the pot I use for reading leaves interfered with in any way.” She hands Edith her cup of tea. “I’ll let you help yourself to milk and sugar, since I don’t know how you take it, and my crystal ball won’t tell me that either.”

 

“Thank you, Madame Fortuna.” She gratefully accepts the cup from her hostess. She adds a large slosh of milk to her tea. “Yes, I’m just a humble domestic, like your Trudy.”

 

“And where do you work, my dear Miss Watsford, and for whom?” She picks the cigarette back up, draws upon it and exhales another plume of greyish white smoke into the air above them.

 

“I work as a live-in maid-of-all-work for the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd in Mayfair, Madame Fortuna.” Edith adds two heaped spoonfuls of sugar to her milky tea and stirs it. “I’m glad you’re honest, Madame Fortuna.” Edith admits, releasing a pent-up breath. “I must confess, even though I’d been saying it for a while, it took a lot of courage for me to finally write to you care of The Times.”

 

“And why did you choose me, Miss Watsford?” Mrs. Fenchurch asks, adding a level teaspoon of sugar to her tea. “There are other clairvoyants who advertise in The Times.”

 

“Well, because you said in your advertisement, that you are discreet.”

 

“Discretion is a byword here in Strathray Gardens, Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Fenchurch assures her as she adds a small amount of milk to her tea. “Please, do have a biscuit, even if it is only one from Huntley and Palmer.” She proffers the fluted clear glass plate of biscuits to Edith who picks a dainty jam tart.

 

The pair fall into a companionable silence for a short while. They sip their tea, eat biscuits and Mrs. Fenchurch finishes her cigarette before stubbing it out in the black ashtray. As she sips her tea and munches on her biscuit, Mrs. Fenchurch eyes Edith through her pince-nez, her mouth screwing up into a tight, wrinkled purse as she ruminates.

 

“Do you mind if I ask you a most indelicate question, Miss Watsford?” Mrs. Fenchurch asks at length.

 

Licking her lips of crumbs, Edith shakes her head.

 

“You’re not in trouble, are you Miss Watsford?”

 

“Me?” Edith’s eyes grow wide again. “No Madame Fortuna! I’ve never broken a law in my life.”

 

“No,” Mrs. Fenchurch chuckles sadly. “I didn’t mean like that. In meant trouble in the family sense, if you understand my meaning, Miss Watsford.” She looks seriously at Edith.

 

“Oh goodness no!” Edith gasps.

 

Mrs. Fenchurch holds up her hands in defence, displaying the frothy lace cuffs at her wrists. “Pardon me for asking, Miss Watsford, but in my… well, my line of work, I do get young ladies in trouble in my parlour looking for answers to their problems: answers my crystal ball and fortune telling cards can’t provide.”

 

“Oh no, Madame Fortuna!” Edith takes a gulp of her tea. “I can assure you, I’m not that kind of girl! Not in the least!”

 

“Well, that’s good.” Mrs. Fenchurch opines with satisfaction. “No, you didn’t strike me as such, but you never can tell. Dressed as smartly as you are, I wouldn’t have taken you for a domestic. That’s why I thought you might have been a teacher, or governess.”

 

“I’m quite handy with the needle, Madame Fortuna.” Edith says proudly. “I learned from my mum, who’s a laundress.”

 

“Very good.” The older woman sips her own tea thoughtfully. “So why are you here then, Miss Watsford? What is it that you want to know from Madame Fortuna?”

 

“I’m not sure you’ll think it worthy of your clairvoyant powers, Madame Fortuna.” Edith admits guiltily. “I very nearly retreated when your maid didn’t answer the door straight away.”

 

“Come now, Miss Watsford! It must be of some great importance to you, if you agonised so much before answering my advertisement.”

 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” Edith mutters as she drinks more of her tea.

 

“Don’t drain your cup, my dear!” Mrs. Fenchurch warns, flapping her hand towards Eith with her nose buried in the dainty blue and white floral teacup. “And I’m glad you have come. No matter is too insignificant for Madame Fortuna.” She reaches over and takes Edith’s cup and saucer from her as Edith replaces the cup onto the saucer. “So what is it you seek answers to, Miss Watsford?”

 

Edith doesn’t answer immediately as she thinks about what now seems a triviality in her life. “Well, it’s about the young man I’m stepping out with.”

 

“You’re concerned about his character?” Mrs. Fenchurch queries as she winds her wrinkled, yet elegant fingers around Edith’s teacup.

 

“Oh no!” Edith assures her. “Frank’s ever such a nice chap. He isn’t hiding any secrets from me.”

 

“Then what, Miss Watsford?” Holding the cup in her left hand, she swirls what is left at the bottom of it three times from left to right. “Tell Madame Fortuna.”

 

“Well, he says he wants to marry me, but he’s been dragging his heels about it.” Edith admits with a frustrated sigh. “We almost had a falling out over it when we were up the Elephant****************** a few weeks back. I just want to know he really means to marry me.”

 

“I see.” Mrs. Fenchurch says, and as she does, she flips Ediths cup upside down with her left hand, the loud sound of the teacup’s edge hitting the saucer startling Edith and making her jump in her seat. Speaking in a loud and dramatic tone, the older woman goes on, “Let Madame Fortuna and her advanced skills in tasseomancy******************* solve your quandary, Miss Watsford!”

 

The older woman leans forward over the cup, her puffed sleeves with their beaded embroidery panels acting like a protective shield as she rotates the cup three times before turning it back up again, carefully making sure the handle is pointing towards Edith. Mrs. Fenchurch peers inside.

 

“Come!” Mrs. Fenchurch commands Edith after spending a few moments examining the leaves left stuck on the inside of the teacup.

 

She begins to shuffle her seat towards Edith, and Edith does the same, until the pair are side by side with the bay window behind them, filtering light into Edith’s now empty teacup.

 

“What do you see, Madame Fortuna?” Edith asks with trepidation.

 

Mrs. Fenchurch points to the clump of tealeaves near the rim of the cup that seems to be drifting away from a larger clump. “Do you see that, Miss Watsford?” she asks.

 

“Yes Madame Fortuna.”

 

“Well that is a past love. Someone you are letting go of, or already have, and they are…”

 

“Oh that will be Bert!” Edith gasps, referencing her first serious beau who, before taking up the King’s shilling******************** and going to war in 1914 was her local postman. He died at the Battle of Passchendaele********************* in 1917. “He…”

 

“Ssshhh!” Mrs. Fenchurch hisses, holding up her left hand and placing her index finger against Edith’s lips to silence her. “Madame Fortuna doesn’t need you to tell her. She needs you to listen.” She points back to the small clump of leaves and continues. “This is your first love. He was a love that you held on to for a long time, maybe long after you should have stopped, but,” She pers more closely at the leaves. “You have done so now, and the bind you had is broken. He isn’t significant any more.”

 

“Yes Madame Fortuna.” Edith says, wide eyed.

 

“Now, this larger clump,” She points to another trail of leaves down near the handle of the teacup. “This is your new love. This is strong.” Her eyes grow wide. “You are committed to him,” She looks across at Edith and smiles confidently. “And he is committed to you.” She looks back into the cup. “Look at how enmeshed the leaves are. Your bond is strong.”

 

“Oh yes, Madame Fortuna!” Edith exclaims. “Frank…”

 

Mrs. Fenchurch hisses again, holding up her left index finger once more. “Listen. Madame Fortuna shall do the telling.”

 

Edith sits quietly in her seat, leans forward and looks first into the cup, then up at Mrs. Fenchurch’s serious face with its paper like translucent skin, and then back at the cup.

 

“See, Miss Watsford.” The old woman points to a line of leaves to the right of the large clump. “He has been stirred into action: made aware of your wish to wed, and he is now getting ready to take the next steps.”

 

“Oh when, Madame Fortuna? When?”

 

“Well, do you see how they are stuck to the side of the cup, Miss Watsford?” When Edith nods with excited anticipation, Mrs. Fenchurch goes on, “The rim of the cup symbolises the present, the sides represent the near future, and the bottom of the cup signifies the far future.” She smiles broadly at Edith, her gentle blue-grey eyes sparkling with quiet and controlled energy. “Your young man isn’t going to propose tomorrow, but he will do so in the near future.”

 

“Really, Madame Fortuna?”

 

“Really, my dear Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Fenchurch places the cup back onto the saucer, around which the excess wet clumps of leaves stick whilst a pool of milky tea, now cold, gathers in the base of it. “Madame Fortuna’s tasseomancy doesn’t lie. I hope that sets your mind at ease.”

 

“Oh it does, Madame Fortuna! Very much!” Edith exclaims, clasping her hands together in delight.

 

Mrs. Fenchurch grasps Edith’s right shoulder with her left hand and squeezes it comfortingly. “You just need to be patient, my dear Miss Watsford. It will come.”

 

A short while later, Mrs. Fenchurch stands at the front pane of her bay window and watches through the slats of the venetian blinds as Edith walks away down Strathray Gardens, back towards the underground railway station. The maid has a skip in her step and a lightness in her stance that she didn’t have coming. Mrs. Fenchurch smiles and sighs through her nose with satisfaction.

 

“You’ve been smoking again, Madam.” Trudy tuts as she sidles up alongside her at the window, clutching the heavily tarnished teapot. “It’s most unseemly in a lady like you.”

 

“Don’t chide me, Trudy! I’m a grown woman, and at a far more advanced age than you. If I choose to smoke, then that is my prerogative.”

 

Trudy follows her mistress’ gaze and watches Edith’s retreating figure through the glass. “What did you tell her, Madam: that silly slip of a girl?”

 

Mrs. Fenchurch twists the shiny shilling she took as payment from Edith for her tasseomancy session with Madame Fortuna in her fingers playfully. “I told her that her young man will propose soon.”

 

“Pshaw!” Trudy scoffs, stepping away from the window and back to the table where she begins to stack up the dirty tea things on her wooden tray. “You know no such thing.” She looks at the congealed tea leaves and dregs of cold tea on Edith’s saucer and mutters, “What a load of old mumbo-jumbo.”

 

“Madame Fortuna’s tasseomancy doesn’t lie. I told her what I read in her leaves. I told her the truth, Trudy.” Mrs. Fenchurch insists, turning away from the window and walking back towards her seat.

 

“You told her your version of the truth, more like it, Madam.”

 

“I saw what I saw in the leaves, Trudy.” Mrs. Fenchurch retorts, sinking down into the comfortable red velvet embrace of her chair. “And I told her what she needed to hear.”

 

“I’m going to go to the scullery right now and polish this pot, Madam.”

 

“Oh no you’re not, Trudy!” Mrs. Fenchurch replies with a commanding steeliness to her voice. “That pot is the vessel for my tasseomancy. I shan’t have you taint it with your domestic cleanliness! And that’s an end to it. If you are feeling industrious and want to polish something, go and polish the doorknobs.”

 

*A Cottage orné (French for 'decorated cottage') dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding Baroque and Neoclassical architectural styles. English Heritage defines the term as "A rustic building of picturesque design." Cottages ornés often feature well-shaped thatch roofs with ornate timberwork. Examples in England include Queen Charlotte’s Cottage in Kew Gardens, the German cottage used by the children of Queen Victoria at Osbourne on the Isle of White, and The Hermitage, Hanwell in Ealing, as well as the Swiss Cottage Pub after which the suburb of Swiss Cottage was named.

 

**According to the Dictionary of London Place Names, the district of Swiss Cottage is named after an inn called The Swiss Tavern that was built in 1804 in the style of a Swiss chalet on the site of a former tollgate keeper's cottage, and later renamed Swiss Inn and in the early 20th century Swiss Cottage.

 

***Swiss Cottage is a disused London Underground station in Swiss Cottage, north-west London. It was opened in 1868 as the northern terminus of the Metropolitan and St. John's Wood Railway (M&StJWR), the first northward branch extension from Baker Street of the Metropolitan Railway (now the Metropolitan line). Subsequent to the opening of a new Swiss Cottage station, which was served initially by the Bakerloo line (1939–1979) and is now on the Jubilee line (1979–present), this Metropolitan line Swiss Cottage station was closed in 1940.

 

****Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

*****St Peter's Church, Belsize Park is a Victorian church built in the gothic style with a clock tower. Built on Belsize Square, it was consecrated in 1859, and stands in its own garden.

 

******The Religious Society of Friends (or Quakers) began in 1643 in the United Kingdom, at a time of growing disillusionment with the established church. Inspired by George Fox, people sought an alternative, calling themselves “the Friends of Truth”. Commonly known today as the Religious Society of Friends, they are committed to working for equality and peace.

 

*******The Hampstead Meeting House is a Friends meeting house (a Quaker place of worship) at 120 Heath Street in Hampstead. It was designed by Fred Rowntree in the Arts and Crafts style in 1903.

 

********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.

 

*********Tatler was introduced on the 3rd of July 1901, by Clement Shorter, publisher of The Sphere. It was named after the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. Originally sold occasionally as The Tatler and for some time a weekly publication, it had a subtitle varying on "an illustrated journal of society and the drama". It contained news and pictures of high society balls, charity events, race meetings, shooting parties, fashion and gossip, with cartoons by "The Tout" and H. M. Bateman.

 

**********Aspidistras are a flowering plant native to eastern and southeastern Asia, particularly China and Vietnam. They grow well in shade and prefer protected places, which made them the ideal indoor house plant for dark Victorian and Edwardian houses which often only had diffused light seeing in through window treatments of venetian blinds, curtains, lace scrim or a combination of all three.

 

***********Jardinière is a French word, from the feminine form of gardener. In English it means a decorative flower box, planter, planterette or plant pot which flowers or other plants are cultivated and displayed.

 

************Button back upholstered furniture contains buttons embedded in the back of the sofa or chair, which are pulled tightly against the leather creating a shallow dimple effect. This is sometimes known as button tufting.

 

*************Bouclé silk, pronounced “boo-clay” is derived from the French word for “curled” or “ringed,” reflecting the fabric's characteristic looped yarns. It is typically made from a combination of fibres, including wool, cotton, silk, linen, and synthetic materials. The loops can vary in size and tightness, giving the fabric a unique texture.

 

**************A gigot sleeve is a sleeve that was full at the shoulder and became tightly fitted to the wrist. It was more commonly known as a leg-of-mutton sleeve.

 

***************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".

 

****************Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions.

 

*****************The meaning of the very British term “shall I be mother” is “shall I pour the tea?”

 

******************”Up the elephant” is an old fashioned term Londoners used to use to describe visiting the busy shopping precinct of Elephant and Castle, south of the Thames. In its heyday, Elephant and Castle was known as "the Piccadilly Circus of South London".

 

*******************Tasseomancy, known more commonly as tasseography, is the art of identifying symbols and interpreting messages found in the shapes and configurations of tea leaves.

 

********************To take the King’s shilling means to enlist in the army. The saying derives from a shilling whose acceptance by a recruit from a recruiting officer constituted until 1879 a binding enlistment in the British army —used when the British monarch is a king.

 

*********************The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire. The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917.

 

This overstuffed and cluttered Victorian drawing room would have looked very old fashioned by the mid 1920s when this story is set, and it may look real to you. However, this upper-middle-class domestic scene is different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

The crystal ball in its stand is actually a glass marble used for arranging flowers. I deliberately chose one that had lots of bubbles inside it to give the image a magical feeling. The stand is made of glazed brown pottery and is really the stand for a small cloisonne egg.

 

The teapot also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. It is sterling silver, hallmarked Birmingham 1910 and has a removable lid, so it was probably a commissioned piece of Edwardian whimsy for someone wealthy, be they an adult or child. The blue grape and vine tea set came from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The design is a copy from an Edwardian Royal Doulton set.

 

The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). The cigarette lighter is made of sterling silver and was made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The cigarette case, which can be seen just behind the teapot is an artisan miniature as well. It is made of red Morocco leather and opens on a minute hinge to reveal cigarettes inside.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

 

The tarot cards are a desk of 1:12 sized playing cards which came from an online stockist of miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The Aspidistra to the left of the photo comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.

 

The tablecloth is a hand hade lace edged doily which I bought from an antique and curios shop some years ago.

 

The Victorian red velvet button back lady’s armchair and the salon chair in the background, I bought from a high street dolls’ house supplier when I was twelve.

 

The wallpaper is a replica of real Victorian era floral wallpaper. It is very heavily decorated and colourful, and would have been very expensive to have made and hung.

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.

 

Lettice is not long returned from Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice visited her family home for Christmas and the New Year until not long after Twelfth Night*. For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the unpleasant issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they did not make their engagement public until the new year: after the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement settled. Sir John motored across from Fontengil Park in the days following New Year and he and Lettice announced their engagement in the palatial Glynes drawing room before the Viscount and Lady Sadie the Countess, Leslie, Arabella and the Viscount’s sister Eglantyne (known by all the Chetwynd children affectionally as Aunt Egg). The announcement was received somewhat awkwardly by the Viscount initially, until Lettice assured him that her choice to marry Sir John has nothing to do with undue influence or mistaken motivations. However, the person most put out by the news is Aunt Egg who is not a great believer in the institution of marriage, and feels Lettice was perfectly fine as a modern unmarried woman.

 

Today Lettice is entertaining her Aunt Egg in her elegantly appointed Cavendish Mews drawing room in an effort to curry favour with her and change her mind about the engagement of Lettice and Sir John.

 

“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice exclaims in exasperation, sinking in the rounded back of her white upholstered tub chair. “After the somewhat mediocre response to my engagement to John, I need someone in my corner.”

 

“And why would that be me, my dear Lettice?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“Well, I… I just thought.” Lettice stammers.

 

“You thought what, Lettice?”

 

“Well, usually you are at odds with Mater. If Mater says it is white, you say it is black. I thought, well I thought that since Mamma seems to be as lukewarm to the idea of me becoming the next Lady Nettleford-Hughes..”

 

“That I would immediately be for it, my dear?” Eglantyne finishes Lettice’s statement for her as she picks up her teacup and sips some more tea from it beneath lowered lids, avoiding Lettice’s imploring gaze, before returning it to its saucer.

 

“Well… well yes.” Lettice admits guiltily.

 

Lettice’s Aunt Egg, as well as being unmarried, is an artist and ceramicist of some acclaim. Originally a member of the Pre-Raphaelites** in England, these days she flits through artistic and bohemian circles and when not at her Little Venice*** home in her spacious and light filled studio at the rear of her garden, can be found mixing with mostly younger artistic friends in Chelsea. Her unmarried status, outlandish choice of friends and rather reformist and unusual dress sense shocks Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, and attracts her derision. In addition, she draws Sadie’s ire, as Aunt Egg has always received far more affection and preferential treatment from her children. Viscount Wrexham on the other hand adores his artistic little sister, and has always made sure that she can live the lifestyle she chooses and create art. Today Eglantyne has eschewed her usual choice of an elegant and column like Delphos gown**** and has opted instead for a rather loose and slightly mannish two piece suit of dark navy wool crêpe. However, as a lover of colour and bohemian style, she has accessorised it with a hand painted Florentine silk scarf splashed with purples and magentas, and as usual, she has strings of colourful glass bugle bead sautoirs***** cascading down her front. When she was young, Eglantyne had Titian red hair that fell in wavy tresses about her pale face, making her a popular muse amongst the Pre-Raphaelites she mixed with. With the passing years, her red hair, when not hennaed, has retreated almost entirely behind silver grey, save for the occasional streak of washed out reddish orange. Today she has hidden it beneath a very impressive turban, which in spite of being dyed navy to match her suit, is at odds with it, especially with a rather exotic aigrette****** of magenta dyed feathers affixed with a diamante brooch sticking out of it.

 

“Yes, I was more than a little surprised at Sadie’s lack of enthusiasm for your marriage to John when you announced your engagement, especially when you consider how much she tried to foist you under his nose.” She snorts derisively. “As if he didn’t know of your existence as a young jeune fille à marier*******.” Eglantyne goes on. “However, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lettice my dear, but today I am not the Thoroughbred to back. For once,” She sighs resignedly. “I am in complete agreement with your mamma.”

 

“What?” Lettice asks, looking across the low black japanned coffee table at her aunt. “Won’t you wish your favourite niece well in her marriage Aunt Egg?”

 

“Who says you are my favourite niece?” Eglantyne asks finally engaging Lettice’s gaze with her own emerald green eyes and cocking an eyebrow as she does.

 

“You do!” Lettice retorts in surprise. Then she adds with a little hurt in her voice, “Or rather, you used to.”

 

“But as you have opined, my dear, on many occasions - you are quite sure I call your sister Lally and all your female cousins, ‘my favourite niece’. You’ll never know, will you my dear,” the older woman continues with a cheeky smile. “I like to keep you all guessing who will inherit my jewels when I die.”

 

“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice scoffs. “You mustn’t talk like that.”

 

“We all of us are going to die one day, Lettice. Anyway,” Eglantyne smiles and reaches out to her niece, wrapping her knee in one of her gnarled and bejewelled hands in a comforting and intimate gesture. “To allay your fears, you are probably the most like me out of all of you girls, with your artistic tendencies, so why shouldn’t you be my favourite? I’ve always enjoyed indulging you.” She withdraws her loving touch and sinks back into her seat. “Mind you, you might be more of a favourite to me if you let me smoke in here.” She taps her gold cigarette case containing her favourite Black Russian Sobranies******** sitting on the green and gold embroidered stool next to her.

 

“In case you’ve forgotten, Aunt Egg, my drawing room is also my showroom for my interior design business. It’s bad enough that Mrs. Boothby smokes in the kitchen when she comes.”

 

“So, this Mrs. Boothby of yours can smoke, but I can’t?” Eglantyne asks with effrontery.

 

“Mrs. Boothby is my char*********, Aunt Egg. You are my aunt. Good chars like Mrs. Boothby are hard to find, what with the servant problem**********.”

 

“And aunts are easily replaceable?” Eglantyne laughs.

 

“No, but you know what I mean, Aunt Egg!” Lettice laughs. “I’d hate for my drawing room to wreak of cigarette smoke.”

 

“You may not like to hear this my dear, but whilst you might be my favourite because you are most like me in temperament and artistic abilities,” Eglantyne smiles and picks up her teacup again. “In some ways, you are just like your mother.”

 

“Well, if I am your favourite niece, why won’t you give my engagement your blessing, Aunt Egg?” Lettice asks imploringly again.

 

“You know me well enough, my dear Lettice, to know that I have no faith in the institution of marriage.” Eglantyne replies matter-of-factly. “Why on earth should I wish to celebrate with congratulations and champagne, or tea for that matter.” She foists her cup upwards as she speaks. “The contract that sells my independent and intelligent niece with a head for business that many men could well do with, like a chattel to her husband?” She shakes her head. “We shan’t fall out over this, and please know that I love you dearly, but for once, I don’t understand you Lettice. You have a perfectly good and full life.” She gesticulates broadly around her with dramatic and sweeping gestures. “Why would you want to spoil it with an engagement?”

 

“Well I…” Lettice begins, but is interrupted by Edith, her maid as she enters the drawing room, ringing her hands anxiously. Lettice looks across at her. “Yes, what is it, Edith? I don’t think the pot needs replenishing yet, thank you.”

 

“Beg pardon, Miss, but I haven’t come to replenish the pot.” Edith explains. “There’s a man at the tradesman’s entrance with a parcel which he says is for you.”

 

“A parcel, Edith?”

 

“Yes Miss. A very large parcel too, all wrapped up in brown paper.”

 

Lettice looks first at her aunt who returns it with a quizzical gaze, and then glances down at the floral patterns in the Chinese silk carpet at her feet, her face crumpling as she does so. “I’m not expecting any parcels.”

 

“That’s what I thought, Miss.” Edith agrees with a curt nod. “I don’t know if I ought to let him in.”

 

“Well, why ever not, Edith?”

 

“Well, he looks a little rough, if you don’t mind me saying, Miss. He’s a delivery man you see, Miss.”

 

“Delivery men often look rough, Edith.” Lettice opines.

 

“What does he want, Edith?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“That’s just the thing, Miss Chetwynd.” Edith replies, addressing the older woman. “He says Miss Lettice is expecting his parcel.”

 

“But I’m not.”

 

“Yes Miss. Err… I mean, no Miss.” Edith stammers.

 

“Where is he from?” Lettice asks.

 

“The Portland Gallery in Soho, Miss.”

 

“The Portland Gallery? Oh!” gasps Lettice, placing her teacup aside and straightening her skirt so it sits neatly just over her knee. “Show him in!”

 

“Very good Miss.” Edith answers in a slightly worried tone, lowering her head and retreating.

 

“Mr. Chilvers must be sending me something very special on approval if I don’t know anything about it!” Lettice exclaims, bouncing a little in her seat as she trembles with excitement.

 

“Indeed.” her aunt agrees with a smile and a nod.

 

Just then, the bell at the front door rings. When no-one answers it, it jarringly sounds again.

 

“Edith!” Lettice calls from her seat. “Edith there is someone at the door!”

 

“Edith’s dealing with the tradesman from the Portland Gallery.” Eglantyne points out helpfully.

 

“Oh yes!” Lettice exclaims. She rises from her seat as the doorbell rings a third time. “Then I suppose I must go and answer it. Would you excuse me, Aunt Egg?”

 

As Lettice enters the entrance hall with its black japanned console table, Edith comes in through the doorway that leads from the service area of the house.

 

“Beg pardon, Miss. I’m just trying to deal with the man from the Portland Gallery. The parcel’s ever so large and he needs someone to hold the doors open for him, Miss.”

 

“It’s alright, Edith.” Lettice assures her with a wave and a nod of her head. “I’ll answer the front door.”

 

“Thank you, Miss.” Edith replies gratefully, retreating quickly back into the corridor behind the door.

 

When Lettice answers the door, she finds to both her surprise and delight, Sir John on her threshold, dressed in a splendid three-quarter length grey winter overcoat with a glossy beaver fur collar, it’s smart cut and perfect fit indicating at a glance that it has come from one of the finest Jermyn Street*********** tailors. He holds his silver topped walking cane in his grey glove clad hand and smiles warmly at Lettice, his eyes sparkling at the sight of her.

 

“Well, this is a surprise, John!” Lettice exclaims in pleasure.

 

“No more than it is a surprise to find you answering your own front door, Lettice my dear.” Sir John says with a mirthful lilt to his voice, a cheekiness turning up the corners of his smile. “What a thoroughly modern woman you are to dispense with the usual protocols.”

 

“Well,” Lettice replies with an awkward and embarrassed laugh. “Usually I wouldn’t, but… well Edith is occupied with a tradesman bringing me an apparently large package from the Portland Gallery.”

 

“That sounds rather thrilling, my darling!” Sir John replies with arched eyebrows. Elegantly, he leans in and kisses Lettice’s right cheek before stepping back slightly and withdrawing a bunch of beautiful red roses with a theatrical flourish and a smile from behind his back. “For you!”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice exclaims, accepting the proffered red blooms, their velvety petals slightly open and releasing a waft of sweet fragrance. “They’re beautiful.” She spends a moment admiring them and appreciating their scent before she suddenly realises that Sir John is still standing on her front doormat. “Oh, where are my manners!” she gasps. “Please, do come inside.” She steps aside and allows Sir John to enter. “Aunt Egg is visiting too. We’re just in the drawing room.”

 

“Oh splendid.” Sir John opines. “lead the way.”

 

The pair walk back into the drawing room where Aunt Egg remains seated. Lettice scurries ahead and deposits the roses on the stool next to the seat her aunt occupies before she pulls a back japanned Chippendale chair across the carpet and draws it up to the coffee table between Lettice’s two armchairs.

 

“Look who it is, Aunt Egg!” Lettice says brightly.

 

“John!” Eglantyne replies. “What a surprise. How do you do.”

 

“How do you do, Eglantyne.” he replies. “I just happened to be passing, and I thought I’d stop, in the hopes of catching Lettice.”

 

“And with a bunch of roses!” Eglantyne remarks, reaching out at touching the rich blooms. “You are sure of yourself.”

 

Lettice turns to her fiancée as he places his derby on a small round chinoiserie tabletop and starts to unbutton his coat whilst still clutching his gloves and his cane in his left hand. “Here, let me take those.” she says apologetically, reaching out. Laughing awkwardly as she accepts his coat she adds, “As you can see, I’d never make a good maid.”

 

“It’s just as well that I don’t want to marry one then, isn’t it, Lettice my darling.” Sir John replies with a chuckle.

 

She smiles. “Aunt Egg and I were just having tea. I’ll have Edith fetch a third cup when she arrives.”

 

Moments later an unnerved Edith shows a rather burley fellow in overalls and a workman’s cap clutching a tall and wide parcel wrapped in brown paper into the drawing room where he stands awkwardly before the assembled company, somewhat dumbstruck by the elegant surroundings and well dressed inhabitants of Lettice’s drawing room as he glances around.

 

“You must be Mr. Chilver’s man.” Lettice says, breaking the awkward silence.

 

“Yes mum! Said ‘e ‘ad a package for you, mum. Special delivery.”

 

“Yes! Yes! Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting it, but if you would be good enough to lean it down here,” she indicates with a sweeping gesture to the Hepplewhite desk next to the fireplace. “Thank you.”

 

“Yes mum.” the delivery man says gratefully, gently lowering the parcel with a groan and leaning it against the edge of the desk.

 

“Excellent.” Lettice replies. “Oh Edith,”

 

“Yes Miss?”

 

“Could you take Sir John’s coat, hat and gloves, please.” Lettice proffers the clothing items to her maid. “And fetch another cup, please.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, accepting the items and bobbing a quick curtsey before turning to go.

 

“Oh and Edith,” Lettice goes on.

 

“Yes Miss?” Edith answers, turning back.

 

“Please take a couple of sixpences out of the housekeeping money tin to tip our man here.” Lettice smiles gratefully at her maid. “I’ll replenish it later.”

 

“Yes Miss,” Edith replies bemused. “Very good, Miss.”

 

“Much obliged, mum.” the burly man replies, snatching his cap from his head and twisting it anxiously between his hands, before turning at Edith’s insistence and following her as she guides him back through the green baize door between the dining room and the service area of the flat.

 

“Were your ears burning, John?” Eglantyne asks.

 

“No!” he chuckles in reply. “Should they have been?”

 

“Lettice and I were just discussing your engagement.” Eglantyne elucidates.

 

“Were you?” Sir John arches his elegantly shaped eyebrows as he gazes knowingly and undeterred at Eglantyne. “Ahh well, thinking of that,” he goes on, a confident smile gracing his thin lips. “I know you wouldn’t have been expecting this parcel, Lettice my dear.” His smile broadens with pleasure, not least of all for having an audience in Eglantyne. “But it comes from me. I arranged to have it sent over. Mr. Chilvers has been kindly holding onto it for me.” He steps over to the parcel and hoists it up with a groan, leaning it against himself as the edge rests on the black japanned surface of the coffee table. “Now that it is official, and our engagement will be appearing in The Times, and the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser************, this is my gift to my bride-to-be!”

 

“Oh John!” Lettice exclaims.

 

“What is it?” Eglantyne asks, leaning forward, her beads trailing down her front rattling noisily together as she does.

 

“Well, why don’t you open it and find out, Lettice?” Sir John says, gazing at his future bride expectantly and extending his left hand encouragingly towards her as he speaks.

 

Lettice needs no second bidding. With trembling hands, she steps forward and gingerly tears at a loose piece of paper which rips noisily as she pulls it asunder. The corner of a simple wooden frame appears first, and then as she continues to tear at the paper, growing more excited with each rip, Lettice can soon see the bold colours and energetic strokes of thickly layered paint on canvas.

 

“Picasso’s ‘The Lovers’!” Eglantyne gasps in amazement.

 

“You bought it!” Lettice exclaims, raising her hand to her painted lips, upon which a broad smile appears. “For me?”

 

Angular lines pick out the faces and torsos of two figures on the canvas. Eyes, noses, hands, two thin lines making up a mouth. Fragmented, distorted and distracted the image radiates intimacy as much as it does boldness: a hand resting on a shoulder, the pair of figures’ heads drawn closely together, both with eyes downcast.

 

“Well, I could hardly declare that I would allow you to hang these daubs of modern art you so dearly, if in my opinion misguidedly, love, unless I gave you at least one to hang.” Sir John says proudly.

 

“Oh John! I don’t know what to say!” Lettice places a chaste kiss on his proffered left cheek.

 

“A thank you is customary.” Sir John answers with a chuckle.

 

“Thank you! You are a darling, John!” Lettice gushes, kissing him chastely on the lips this time, and embracing her fiancée. “Oh! I love it!”

 

Sir John chuckles. “I’m glad, Lettice darling.”

 

“But where will you hang it for now, Lettice?” Eglantyne asks. “Until you can hang it on one of John’s walls?” she adds, referring to Sir John’s previous comment.

 

“Well, I thought Lettice could hang it in here, above the fireplace.” Sir John answers for Lettice, indicating to the space above the mantle currently occupied by a colourful still life of pottery and fruit.

 

“Oh no!” Lettice exclaims, shaking her head. “It’s far too intimate a painting to hang in here.” The tips of her fingers run across her lips playfully and her eyes sparkle as Lettice drunks in the fine details of the colours and the textures of the brushstrokes. “I shall hang it in my boudoir, and that way I can look at it every morning until we are married, John darling!”

 

Lettice immediately turns on her heel and hurries out of the drawing room and into the entrance hall of the flat, calling for Edith to help her move a painting in her bedroom.

 

“Well,” Eglantyne remarks as she sinks back languidly into her seat again, staring up at the painting in Sir Johns hands. “You are full of surprises, my dear John.”

 

Sir John lifts the painting off the surface of the coffee table and shakes it, freeing it of the last of its brown paper protective wrapping.

 

“I never would have imagined you buying a Picasso.” Eglantyne goes on, admiring the boldness of the artwork as Sir John lowers it back to the ground and carefully leans it against the edge of the desk again.

 

“Well,” he remarks as he bends down and gathers up the paper, scrunching it noisily together in a big ball. “It’s not for me, but for Lettice.” He pauses with the large ball of paper in his hands and looks at Lettice’s aunt earnestly. “I really do care for her, you know.” he states with determination.

 

“Oh I don’t doubt it, John, but as I was saying to Lettice before your unexpected arrival, I cannot with all good conscience condone your engagement.”

 

“Why not, Eglantyne?”

 

“You know perfectly well, John, that I am a free spirit. I don’t believe in, nor have any faith in, the institution of marriage that society seems so desparate to conform us all to.” Eglantyne replies matter-of-factly. “As I remarked to Lettice just a short while ago, why on earth should I wish to celebrate the contract that sells my beautiful, intelligent and independent niece like a chattel?” She picks up her nearly empty teacup of now tepid tea. “Lettice had a perfectly good and full life before she became engaged to you.”

 

“Now don’t be bitter, Eglantyne dear.” Sir John chides.

 

“I’m not. I’m simply stating the fact that Lettice was perfectly fine on her own: a single and independent modern woman, just as she has every right to be.”

 

“Has she no right to be a happily married woman, Eglantyne?”

 

“She won’t be happy with you, John. No girl with marriage prospects like Lettice will. And, before you say it,” She wags a heavily bejewelled gnarled finger at Sir John. “I didn’t encourage her involvement with Selwyn Spencely either, unlike her mother who is so besotted with pedigree and titles, so I’m not playing favourites. Lettice was perfectly fine without any man in her life. In fact, she was just embarking on what promised to be a most successful career as an interior designer, but now pfftt!” Sir John can see her lips pursed tightly together in disapproval. Her eyes glow with frustration. “It’s gone! Just like that!”

 

“Says whom?” Sir John asks defensively.

 

“Your marriage contract.” Eglantyne replies with squinting eyes boring into him.

 

“No, it doesn’t, Eglantyne, or rather it won’t, which shows you just how little you know, and what little faith you place in me as a suitable suitor for your precious favourite niece!” When her eyes grow wide in surprise at his sudden harsh outburst at her, Sir John continues, “I’ll have you know that I have made an agreement with Lettice that when she marries me, she may continue her interior design business. Heaven save me from a bored and idle wife with nothing to do all day.” He rolls his eyes.

 

“Except interfere in your own affairs.”

 

“Exactly Eglantyne!” Sie John agrees. “I’m a businessman. She’s a businesswoman, and a successful one, as you’ve pointed out. Why should I stop her from reaching the heights she aspires to and her full potential?”

 

“Then you’re a better man than I took you for, John.” Eglantyne acquiesces.

 

“You did say I was full of surprises.”

 

“I did.”

 

“But?” Sir John says, picking up the unspoken word from Eglantyne’s lips. He shakes his head. “Do you really despise me so?”

 

Eglantyne lifts her eyes to the ornate plaster ceiling above as she shakes her own head as she raises her hand to her rumpled brow. She sighs heavily. “I don’t despise you, John.”

 

“Then what, Eglantyne?”

 

“Come.” She pats the Art Deco patterned cushioned seat of the Chippendale chair next to her. As he walks around the coffee table and lowers himself onto it, she continues, “You mustn’t spread this rumour around, John, but I actually quite like you as a person. I think you and I are rather alike in some ways, which is probably why I do like you. We’re both forthright, even when society suggests we ought not to be, and you’ve never conformed to the societal rule that you should get married.”

 

“Then…”

 

“Until now.”

 

“Well, maybe I just hadn’t met the right girl, up until now.” Sir John defends, smiling smugly with a cocked eyebrow, staring at Eglantyne with defiance.

 

“Oh come!” Eglantyne scoffs. “You’ve never involved yourself with the right girls to get married to in the first place, John. You’ve always had a penchant for chorus girls - young chorus girls. Everyone knows that.” She glances up and looks towards the open doorway of the drawing room. In the flat beyond it she can hear Lettice instruct Edith to help her remove a painting off her boudoir wall. “Well, almost everyone.”

 

“Is that all?” Sir John laughs.

 

“What do you mean is that all?” Eglantyne exclaims in effrontery. “I may not have the belief in the sanctity of marriage, but that isn’t to say my niece doesn’t! This is not an inconsequential step for her. I question your motives.” She eyes him now that they are at the same level. “Just what are you up to, John?”

 

“Me?” He feigns innocence as he holds his hands up in defence. “I’m not up to anything, as you so bluntly put it, Eglantyne. Perhaps your somewhat suspicious mind will be put at ease when I tell you that your intelligent young niece has walked into this marriage proposal with completely open eyes.”

 

“I doubt that!” Eglantyne scoffs again.

 

“Oh but that is where you are wrong, Eglantyne. She knows about my… err… dalliances, shall we say, just as you do.”

 

“So, she knows about Paula Young then?” Eglantyne asks, referring to the young up-and-coming West End actress who is the latest in Sir John’s list of conquests.

 

“Not by name as such, no.” Sir John admits. “I felt it was a little…” He pauses as he tries to think of the correct phrasing. “Indelicate at this sensitive stage in our engagement to introduce her by name. However, she does know, Eglantyne, and she also knows that I won’t shame her publicly – which I give you my assurance I won’t. I’ll never give her a reason to reproach me, and in return for her allowing me my little dalliances with the likes of Paula and those who follow her into my bed thereafter, and keeping them in her confidence, she gets to maintain her business unimpeded by me, be the chatelaine of all my properties, and live a life of luxury. In return, I get an intelligent and pretty wife to appear alongside me at social functions, and maybe some of that idle society gossip can finally be put to bed.”

 

“Really, John?” Eglantyne exclaims in disbelief. “It’s hardly a marriage I’d condone my niece to enter. A marriage of convenience that suits you.”

 

“I promise I’ll make her happy, Eglantyne.” Sir John assures her.

 

“With pretty paintings paid for with deep pockets?” Eglantyne gesticulates towards the Picasso.

 

“We’re both getting exactly what we want out of the bargain.”

 

“Really, John?” Eglantyne asks again with incredulity. “I don’t possibly see how being permitted to continue her business affairs is enough in a marriage to make Lettice happy.”

 

“If I’m being perfectly honest, which I know I can be with you, dear Eglantyne,” Sir John goes on. “As part of our arrangement, so long as she gives me an heir, and there is no question as to his paternity, I am also giving Lettice the opportunity to engage in arrangements of her own outside the marriage bed, should she choose to indulge.”

 

Eglantyne shudders. “I still cannot condone such a marriage, even with that clause. A marriage of two people loving anyone other than one another is recipe for tears and divorce. There is no happiness that I can see for poor Lettice.” She sighs. “Nor for you in the long run, you sad, misguided soul. However, she has made up her mind,” She pauses. “For now ,anyway, whilst she is besotted with the idea. Let’s see how long that lasts for once the realties of this arrangement of yours start to solidify in Lettice’s mind. Will you let her go if she comes to her senses before she walks up the aisle?”

 

“Of course, Eglantyne. Lettice isn’t the only one who has her eyes open. I know I’m much older than her, and that perhaps my dalliances may be too much for a sensitive soul like Lettice, but I aim to keep them as discreetly far away from her sphere as possible.”

 

“Can a leopard change his spots, thus?” Eglantyne leans forward. “Don’t forget that I have known you for a long time, John. Discretion has never been your strongest suit.”

 

“Well, Eglantyne,” Sir John stares back at her. “We shall just have to wait and see.”

 

“Indeed we will see.” Eglantyne nods knowingly.

 

*Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve depending upon the tradition) is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either the fifth of January or the sixth of January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas Day or the twenty-sixth of December. January the sixth is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, which begins the Epiphanytide season.

 

**The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse. The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. They rejected what they regarded as the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The Brotherhood believed the classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite".

 

***Little Venice is an affluent residential district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction, also known as Little Venice and Browning's Pool, forms a triangular shape basin designed to allow long canal boats to turn around. Many of the buildings in the vicinity are Regency white painted stucco terraced town houses and taller blocks (mansions) in the same style.

 

****The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.

 

*****A sautoir is a French term for a long necklace that suspends a tassel or other ornament.

 

******An aigrette is a headdress consisting of a white egret's feather or other decoration such as a spray of gems.

 

*******A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.

 

********The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.

 

********A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

**********With new employment opportunities opening for working-class women in factories and department stores between the two World Wars, many young people, mostly female, left the long hours, hard graft and low wages of domestic service opting for the higher wages and better treatment these new employment opportunities provided.

 

***********Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for high end gentlemen's clothing retailers and bespoke tailors in the West End.

 

************The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser is weekly newspaper which serves the towns of west Wiltshire, including Trowbridge. Printed in Trowbridge it was established in 1854 by Benjamin Lansdown, as The Trowbridge and Wiltshire Advertiser. Benjamin was born in Trowbridge and was the son of a woollen mill employee but this was not the path he wished to follow and he was apprenticed as a printer alongside Mr John Sweet. He bought a hard press and second-hand typewriter before starting his own newspaper, along with establishing his own stationery shop in Silver Street around 1860. He moved the business into 15 Duke Street around 1876. Duke Street became home to the impressive R. Hoe & Co printing press that allowed printers to use continuous rolls of paper, instead of individual sheets, to speed up the process and countless copies of the newspaper rolled off the press at Duke Street for many years. The newspaper was based there for more than one hundred years and the business remained within the Lansdown family for generations until it was finally sold in the early 1960s. Over the years in had various names including The Trowbridge and North Wiltshire Advertiser from 1860 until 1880, The Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser from 1880 until 1949, The Wiltshire Times between 1950 and 1962 and The Wiltshire Times & News between 1962 and 1963. It then became known as the Wiltshire Times – the banner it holds today. In 2019, the Wiltshire Times and its sister paper the Gazette & Herald moved to offices on the White Horse Business Park in North Bradley, stating that its Duke Street building was no longer fit for purpose. These offices later closed in 2020 as the three Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns struck. The Wiltshire times is still serving the local community both in a paper and an online format with a small team of journalists who passionately believe in the value of good trusted journalism and providing in-depth local news coverage.

 

This 1920s 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:

 

Central to our story, the “Lovers” painting by Picasso is a 1:12 miniature painted by hand in the style of Picasso by miniature artist Mandy Dawkins of Miniature Dreams in Thrapston. The frame was handmade by her husband John Dawkins.

 

Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era called “Falling Leaves”. The glass comport is made of real glass and was blown by hand is an artisan miniature acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The bunch of red roses to the far left of the image also comes from Beautifully handmade Miniatures.

 

The very realistic floral arrangements around the room are made by hand by the Doll House Emporium in America who specialise in high end miniatures.

 

The Vogue magazine that you see on Lettice’s coffee table is a 1:12 size miniature 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, although this is amongst the exception. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more 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 this a miniature artisan piece. 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. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

Sir John’s silver knobbed walking stick is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. The top is sterling silver. It was made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.

 

On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.

 

The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

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 are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home, although with her husband’s promotion as a Line Manager, she no longer needs to do it quite so much to supplement their income. Whilst far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, the Harlesden terrace has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her seafaring brother, Bert.

 

We find ourselves in Ada’s kitchen, the heart of the Watsford’s little home. Even before she walked through the glossy black painted front door today, Edith could smell the familiar scent of her mother’s delicious baking, and as she walked into the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house, she found Ada making one of her favourite seasonal treats: hot cross buns* for Easter.

 

Edith is sitting at her usual perch on a tall ladderback chair drawn up to the round table, worn and scarred by years of heavy use that dominates the cluttered, old fashioned kitchen as her mother withdraws a tray of four large and delicious looking hot cross buns from the baking oven on the left-hand side of the old kitchen range that dominates the far wall of the kitchen. The air of the kitchen is injected with the sweet, mouthwatering smell of cooked currants, cinnamon, nutmeg and a hint of orange. Holding the battered metal baking tray with a thick yellow cloth with red edging, Ada slips it onto the kitchen table with a clatter, making the four golden brown hot cross buns rattle around.

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith gasps with admiration as she looks at the perfectly baked buns with glistening raisins poking out of the dough like jewels, decorated with their creamy white flour paste crosses. “They look perfect!”

 

“They smell perfect too!” pipes up George, who, being a Sunday, is sitting in his chair by the range, enjoying his Sunday Express crossword** as he absorbs its cosy heat.

 

“Thank you, both of you.” Ada remarks with a satisfied smile, placing her hands on her fleshy hips as she admires her own handiwork with twinkling caramel brown eyes. “They aren’t bad, even if I do say so myself.”

 

“Mum!” Edith exclaims again. “They are far better than that! I can never get my hot cross buns to be as light and fluffy as yours.”

 

“Do you give it a good knead like I’ve told you to, Edith love?” Ada asks her daughter.

 

“I do, Mum.” Edith nods.

 

“And you remember my saying?” Ada continues.

 

“Yes Mum: ‘make fresh today and bake fresh tomorrow’. I make sure I let the dough rest and rise the day before, just like you’ve told me to do.” Edith replies. “I never bake hot cross buns with dough I’ve made the same day, and they still don’t come out as light and fluffy as yours.”

 

“Well, I know what I think it is, Edith love.” Ada says, tapping her nose knowingly with a careworn finger.

 

“What is it, Mum?”

 

“You won’t like it, Edith love.”

 

‘Oh, please tell me, Mum!” Edith pleads. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

 

“Oh no!” Ada retorts, quickly reassuring her daughter. “I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s your equipment.”

 

“But Miss Lettice’s kitchen is lovely and up-to-date, Mum! She even has a beautiful gas stove to bake in.”

 

“And therein lies the problem.” Ada replies, standing up straight and reaching over, tapping the cool black leaded top of her range with affection, smiling beatifically as she does. “Nothing beats these good old coal ranges when it comes to baking.”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith exclaims aghast. “You’re so… so…”

 

“Old fashioned, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Traditional, Mum!” Edith assures her.

 

“I told you, you wouldn’t like my reason,” Ada replies. “But there it is nonetheless, Edith love. They may be a bit old hat***, dirty, and somewhat problematic and recalcitrant at times, but nothing beats a good old coke**** range for baking.”

 

“Your Mum has a point, Edith love.” George remarks, looking over the top of his newspaper, his blue pencil clutched between his right index and middle finger peering around the edge of the printed sheets. “I can’t say there is anything she has baked in that oven that hasn’t come out looking and smelling wonderful.”

 

“You just want a freshly baked hot cross bun, George love.” Ada says, eyeing her husband knowingly and wagging a finger at him.

 

“Well,” George remarks, folding his newspaper crisply in half and casting it and his pencil onto the kitchen table as he drags his Windsor chair across the flagstones and sits at the table opposite his daughter. ‘Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t say no to one.” He rubs his stomach, enwrapped in an argyle patterned***** knitted vest, indicating his hungriness. “No-one makes hot cross buns as nicely as you do, Ada my love.”

 

“Oh you!” Ada flaps her red trimmed yellow cloth at him playfully, before leaning forward with a groan to kiss her husband tenderly on the lips. “You always know how to wrangle what you want out of me.”

 

“Flattery never fails.” George admits with a gormless grin.

 

“Alright Edith love.” Ada says with a sigh, albeit a happy one as she happily gives in to her husband’s indulgence. “Will you be a help and fetch down the tea things and some plates, whilst I fill the Brown Betty******.”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith replies with eagerness, anxious to enjoy and savour the delight of one of her mother’s home made hot cross buns.

 

A short while later the table is set with a selection of Ada’s mismatched china pieces, all market finds she has made by her over the years, taken down from the shelves of the great, dark Welsh dresser behind Edith’s ladderback chair. George has a pretty blue and white floral sprigged Royal Doulton******* cup, whilst Ada has a pink, yellow and blue floral Colclough******** one, and Edith has her favourite yellow rose Royal Albert********* teacup with its dainty fluted sides and gilt edge. The Brown Betty sits gleaming between them, steam rising in delicate curlicues from her spot, flanked by a pretty Victorian milk jug and sugar bowl which is missing its lid.

 

“Right then!” Ada says cheerfully as she picks up a plate. “One for you George.” She picks up a hot cross bun and plops it on the plate and hands it to her husband, who accepts it gratefully with wide, hungry eyes. “And one for you, Edith love.” She picks up a second bun and places it on a plate which she then hands to her daughter. “And lastly one for me.” She adds one to her own plate. ‘Please help yourself to butter.” She indicates with an open hand to the small square of butter sitting in a gleaming clear glass dish.

 

“I wonder who will get the last one?” George asks, eyeing the remaining hot cross bun on the silver baking tray.

 

“Yes, I wonder.” Ada says sarcastically with raised eyebrows, knowing full well, as does Edith, that George will claim the last one for himself.

 

“You know the story of how your mum and I met, don’t you Edith love?” George asks as he cuts his bun in half with a knife.

 

Edith rolls her eyes. “Of course I do, Dad!” she replies with a good natured smile. “You have told Bert and I more times than I can count how you met Mum at the young people’s social picnic in Roundwood Park********** organised by the Vicar of All Souls***********. You tell us that Mum wouldn’t have been nearly as attractive if she hadn’t been carrying a tin of her best biscuits at the time.”

 

“Pshaw!” Ada scoffs as she butters her own hot cross bun before handing the dish to her husband.

 

“It’s true.” He accepts the butter dish. “Your mum knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and it certainly is mine.”

 

“Pshaw!” Ada repeats. “You mean you weren’t attracted to me anyway?” She turns back to her daughter. “I looked very fetching that day. I was wearing my new Sunday best dress for spring which I’d made especially for the picnic. It was made of cotton decorated with sprigs of pink roses, and it had leg-of-mutton sleeves************. I was wearing my best Sunday hat too, made of straw with the dried flowers around the brim.”

 

“Yes,” George replies, clearing his throat awkwardly. “You were as lovely as a summer’s day, Ada.”

 

Ada giggles rather girlishly, an unusual thing for Edith to witness and pushes a few loose strands of her mousy brown hair flecked with grey that has come loose from her bun behind her ear. “Your father was too shy to talk to me. It was only because I thought he looked rather handsome in his Sunday best suit and I asked him if he’d like a biscuit that we even spoke.”

 

“I say, steady on, old girl!” George retorts, clearing his throat awkwardly again. “That’s not how I remember it.”

 

“Men seldom remember the truth of things in the aftermath.” Ada winks at her daughter conspiratorially. “They are very good at inventing their own history.”

 

“Well, anyway,” George blusters as his cheeks redden with embarrassment, suggesting there is more than a little truth to his wife’s story. “What I wanted to ask you, Edith,” He focusses his attention on his daughter, trying to ignore his wife’s smug smile, pausing his buttering of his hot cross bun “Was, did I ever tell you about the first Easter Sunday picnic we had after your mother and I had been stepping out together?”

 

“No.” Edith replies, accepting the butter dish as he passes it to her, sitting more upright in her seat as she pays close attention. “I don’t think so.”

 

“Do you remember that picnic, Ada love?” George asks, smiling at his wife, his eyes sparkling with happiness and love.

 

Ada pauses for a moment, her buttered bun paused between her plate and her mouth. Her brow crumples over her eyes as she concentrates. “I remember the crocuses were out. The lawns near the old Lodge House Café************* were a sea of purple and lilac, with a smattering of orange.”

 

“As they are every spring, Ada love.” George remarks.

 

Edith bites into one half of her hot buttered hot cross bun and sighs with happiness, savouring the taste of the freshly baked and lightly spiced dough and warm, juicy currants as she chews.

 

“Do you remember anything else, Ada love?” George asks his wife as he bites into his own hot cross bun, washing the mouthful down with a swig of tea from his cup.

 

“I obviously must have made hot cross buns.” Ada adds hopefully, but the doubt in her voice demonstrates clearly that she doesn’t remember. “Or you wouldn’t have brought this reminiscence up.”

 

George chuckles, snoring through his nose as he finishes his mouthful of hot cross bun. “I’ll say you did!” he manages to say jovially as he chews.

 

Edith swallows her mouthful of bun and deposits the remainder on her plate. Picking up her teacup she asks before sipping its contents, “Well don’t keep me in suspense, Dad!” She swallows her tea. “What happened?”

 

“Yes, what did happ…” Ada begins, before halting mid-sentence and starting again. “Am I going to want our daughter to hear whatever you’re about to share, George Watsford?” She returns her untouched half of her bun to her plate and looks sharply at her husband.

 

“Goodness Ada, how suspicious you are.” George chuckles good naturedly. He turns to his daughter. “That’s marriage for you. Are you sure you want to marry Frank?” he adds jokingly.

 

“Oh Dad!” Edith laughs, flapping her hand dismissively at him.

 

“What are you going to tell our daughter, George?” Ada persists.

 

“I was simply going to tell Edith about how popular your hot cross buns were that day.” George elucidates.

 

“Oh well, that’s alright then.” Ada replies, heaving a sigh of relief, easing her tensed shoulders and settling back into the round spindled back of her Windsor chair. Picking up the half a hot cross bun she gives her permission by nodding and saying, “Go ahead.” She then takes a bite of her bun and sighs happily.

 

After quickly scoffing the remainder of his first half of his hot cross bun, George rubs his buttery fingers together before steepling them over his plate and staring at his daughter who returns his gaze with alert eyes, anxious to know what transpired. “Well Edith, as you know at these sorts of occasions, once again being a young people’s Easter Sunday picnic organsied by the Vicar, everyone knew everyone else.”

 

George pauses and looks at his wife to see if she remembers the picnic, however her face remains passive, her eyes inquisitive.

 

“Go on Dad.” Edith says with anticipation.

 

“And of course that meant that everyone also knew about your mum’s baking prowess.” George goes on.

 

“Oh George!” Ada gasps, blushing at her husband’s compliment.

 

“What happened, Dad?” Edith asks.

 

“Well, on the day of the Easter Sunday picnic, your mum had baked me a basket of fresh hot cross buns that we were able to share, but when we sat down,” He turns his attentions back to his wife. “Lilian and Ernie Pyecroft, who were of course only young lovers a-courting then too and not married, came and joined us.” George chuckles as he remembers. “Your mum offered them a freshly baked hot cross bun each, which they took. And then your Aunt Maud arrived with your Uncle Sydney and she offered them a bun each, and then the Vicar and his wife walked past, so she offered them one each.”

 

“It was the right and Christian thing to do, George,” Ada defends herself. “To offer the Vicar and his wife a hot cross bun each! I could hardly have not! I would have looked stingy.”

 

“Aha!” George laughs, pointing at his wife. “You do remember then, Ada!”

 

“Of course I remember, George love.” Ada replies, her face flushing with embarrassment.

 

“Well, what was so wrong with offering the Vicar and his wife a hot cross bun, Dad?” Edith asks. “I’d have done the same.”

 

“Of course you would, Edith love.” Ada purrs. “I’m proud of you.”

 

“Because,” George explains with a loud guffaw. “By the time she had done that, she’d given away all the hot cross buns she’s made for us, and I didn’t get to have a one that day!”

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith replies as she starts to giggle.

 

“I was just trying to be a good, Christian soul.” Ada defends herself again, folding her arms akimbo, but blushing bright red as she does.

 

“You were that,” George laughs harder. “To my detriment!”

 

Then even Ada starts to laugh at the tale of that Easter many springs ago before the war. “At least I made you some more the next Sunday when we had a picnic, George Watsford! And you were able to have as many as you wanted.”

 

George’s laughs start to subside, and he concurs with this wife.

 

“What did you eat then, if all the hot cross buns were gone?” Edith asks her parents.

 

“Oh don’t worry, Edith love. I knew your father had a good appetite, so I’d also made a nice cherry cobbler, which we made short work of.”

 

“We did that.” George agrees.

 

The family trio continue to enjoy their hot buttered fresh hot cross buns, chuckling away at George’s tale as they finish them off. The kitchen feels warm and cosy filled with the smell of Ada’s hot cross buns and the sound of their gentle enjoyment of them. True to his usual form, George scoffs the last of his first hot cross bun, and then helps himself to the last one on the tray between them all. Ada and Edith smile at him indulgently as they watch him enjoy it like a little boy.

 

“More tea, Edith love?” Ada asks, picking up the Brown betty and proffering its tilted spout towards her daughter’s teacup.

 

“Yes please, Mum.” Edith replies, lifting up her cup.

 

As Ada fills her daughter’s cup, a thoughtful look crosses Edith’s face.

 

“Mum, I’ve just had the loveliest idea.” she says looking up at her mother.

 

“What’s that, Edith love?” Ada asks.

 

“Well, why don’t we have a picnic on Easter Sunday in Roundwood Park: you Dad, me and Frank!” Edith enthuses. “You can bake hot cross buns and I’ll make some sandwiches. It will give me a good excuse to use the wonderful picnic basket Bert brought back from Australia for me.”

 

“What about Mrs. McTavish, Edith?” George asks.

 

“Oh, she’s gone to stay with her brother in Aberdeen, as she does every year at Easter, Dad, so it’s just Frank on his own.”

 

“Well, I think that sounds like a capital idea, Edith.” Ada agrees. “Let’s do it! What do you think, George?”

 

“I’m happy to, Ada love, but only on one condition though.” George adds.

 

“What?” Ada and Edith ask at the same time.

 

“That there are to be no giving of hot cross buns to any passenger vicars.” Georg says with a definite nod as he eats the last of his second hot cross bun.

 

*A hot cross bun is a spiced bun, usually containing small pieces of raisins and orange peel, marked with a cross on the top, which has been traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Malta, the United States and the Commonwealth Caribbean. They are available all year round in some countries now, including the United Kingdom and Australia. The bun marks the end of the season of Lent and different elements of the hot cross bun each have a specific meaning, such as the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him and sometimes also orange peel reflecting the bitterness of his time on the cross.

 

**The Sunday Express became the first newspaper to publish a crossword in November 1924.

 

***The term “old hat”, meaning out-of-date or old fashioned, is a relatively new saying, dating from 1911, taken quite literally from the words “old” and “hat”.

 

****Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content. It is made by heating coal or petroleum in the absence of air. Coke is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting today, but was also commonly used as a cheap fuel in stoves and forges in the Victorian and Edwardian eras before the and even in the immediate years after the Second World War. The unqualified term "coke" usually refers to the product derived from low-ash and low-sulphur bituminous coal by a process called coking.

 

*****An argyle pattern features overlapping diamonds with intersecting diagonal lines on top of the diamonds. They are traditionally knit, not woven, using an intarsia technique. The pattern was named after the Seventeenth Century tartan of Clan Campbell of Argyll in western Scotland.

 

******A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.

 

*******Royal Doulton is an English ceramic manufacturing company dating from 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of English pottery. From the start the backbone of the business was a wide range of utilitarian wares, mostly stonewares including storage jars, tankards and the like, and later extending to pipes for drains, lavatories and other bathroom ceramics. From 1853 to 1902 its wares were marked Doulton & Co., then from 1902, when a royal warrant was given, Royal Doulton. It always made some more decorative wares, initially still mostly stoneware, and from the 1860s the firm made considerable efforts to get a reputation for design, in which it was largely successful, as one of the first British makers of art pottery. Initially this was done through artistic stonewares made in Lambeth, but in 1882 the firm bought a Burslem factory, which was mainly intended for making bone china tablewares and decorative items. It was a latecomer in this market compared to firms such as Royal Crown Derby, Royal Worcester, Wedgwood, Spode and Mintons, but made a place for itself in the later 19th century. Today Royal Doulton mainly produces tableware and figurines, but also cookware, glassware, and other home accessories such as linens, curtains and lighting. Three of its brands were Royal Doulton, Royal Albert and (after a post-WWII merger) Mintons. Royal Doulton is one of the last great British bone china manufacturers still in existence.

 

******** Colclough Bone China was founded in Staffordshire in 1890 by Herbert J. Colclough, the former mayor of Stoke-on-Trent. Herbert loved porcelain and loved the ordinary working man. One of his desires was to bring fine bone china, a preserve of the upper and middle classes, to the working man. He felt that it would give them aspirations and dignity to eat off fine bone china. Colclough Bone China received a Royal Warrant from King George V in 1913. Colclough went on to innovate the production of fine bone china for the mass market in the 1920s and 1930s. They produced the backstamp brands Royal Vale and Royal Stanley. Colclough Bone China merged with Booth’s Pottery and later acquired Ridgeway China. Eventually they amalgamated with Royal Doulton in the 1970s.

 

*********In 1896, Thomas Clark Wild bought a pottery in Longton, Stoke on Trent, England, called Albert Works, which had been named the year before in honor of the birth of Prince Albert, who became King George VI in 1936. Using the brand name Albert Crown China, Thomas Wild and Co. produced commemorative bone-china pieces for Queen Victoria's 1897 Diamond Jubilee, and by 1904 had earned a Royal Warrant. From the beginning, Royal Albert's bone china dinnerware was popular, especially its original floral patterns made in rich shades of red, green, and blue. Known for incredibly fine, white, and pure bone china, Royal Albert was given to the sentimental and florid excesses of Victorian era England, making pattern after pattern inspired by English gardens and woodlands. With designs like Serena, Old English Roses, and Masquerade and motifs inspired by Japanese Imari, the company appealed to a wide range of tastes, from the simplest to the most aristocratic. In 1910, the company created its first overseas agency in New Zealand. Soon it had offices in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Willing to experiment with the latest in industrial technologies, the company was an early adopter of kilns fuelled by gas and electricity. Starting in 1927, Royal Albert china used a wide variety of more stylized backstamps, some with the crown, some without, and others stylized with script and Art Deco lettering. Some of these marks even had roses or other parts of the pattern in them. Patterns from the years between the wars include American Beauty, Maytime, Indian Tree, Dolly Varden, and Lady-Gay. The '40s saw patterns like Fragrance, Teddy's Playtime, Violets for Love, Princess Anne, Sunflower, White Dogwood, Mikado, Minuet, Cotswold, and the popular Lady Carlyle. Royal Albert incorporated as a limited company in 1933, and in the 1960s it was acquired by Pearson Group, joining that company's Allied English Potteries. By 1970, the porcelain maker was completely disassociated with its T.C. Wild & Sons origins and renamed Royal Albert Ltd. Pearson Group also acquired Royal Doulton in 1972, putting Royal Crown Derby, Royal Albert, Paragon, and the Lawleys chain under the Royal Doulton umbrella, which at this point included Minton, John Beswick, and Webb Corbett. In 1993, Royal Doulton Group was ejected from Pearson Group, for making less money than its other properties. In 2002, Royal Doulton moved the production of Royal Albert china from England to Indonesia. A few years later, Waterford Wedgwood absorbed Royal Doulton Group and all its holdings, which currently makes three brands, Royal Doulton, Minton, and Royal Albert, including the Old Country Roses pattern, which is Royal Albert’s most popular design.

 

**********Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at the Vulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

***********The parish of All Souls, Harlesden, was formed in 1875 from Willesden, Acton, St John's, Kensal Green, and Hammersmith. Mission services had been held by the curate of St Mary's, Willesden, at Harlesden institute from 1858. The parish church at Station Road, Harlesden, was built and consecrated in 1879. The town centre church is a remarkable brick octagon designed by E.J. Tarver. Originally there was a nave which was extended in 1890 but demolished in 1970.

 

************A gigot sleeve is a sleeve that was full at the shoulder and became tightly fitted to the wrist. It was more commonly known as a leg-of-mutton sleeve.

 

*************Oliver Claude Robson who designed Roundwood Park decided that a café would be a good addition to the park, so in 1897 a suitable building was designed and constructed by council employees. It was made of brick and timber with a steeply pitched slate roof and gables, with a verandah surrounding it. Various owners succeeded one another. In 1985, a new building was constructed because the old one became run down.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The hot cross buns on the silver baking tray on the kitchen table have been made in England by hand 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 Brown Betty teapot, made of real glazed pottery, comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. various odd china pieces all come from online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The newspaper which features an image of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Elizabeth and one day Queen Mother, is a copy of a real Daily Mail newspaper from 1925 and was produced to high standards in 1:12 by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The pencil on top of it is a 1:12 miniature as well, acquired from Melody Jane Dolls’ House Suppliers. It is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel, including Ada’s tan soft leather handbag seen resting against her basket at the right of the picture.

 

Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an 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.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I acquired from The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutionised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a jar of Bovril, a tin Bird’s Golden Raising Powder, some Ty-Phoo tea, a tin of S.P.C. canned fruit and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick and salty meat extract paste similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar, and as cubes and granules. Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to Marmite and Vegemite. Bovril can be made into a drink ("beef tea") by diluting with hot water or, less commonly, with milk. It can be used as a flavouring for soups, broth, stews or porridge, or as a spread, especially on toast in a similar fashion to Marmite and Vegemite.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

Bird’s were best known for making custard and Bird’s Custard is still a common household name, although they produced other desserts beyond custard, including the blancmange. They also made Bird’s Golden Raising Powder – their brand of baking powder. Bird’s Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production. John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. Monk and Glass custard was made in Clerkenwell and sold in the home market, and exported to the Empire and to America. They acquired by its rival Bird’s Custard in the early Twentieth Century.

 

S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

This iPhone / iPad Background (768x1024 wallpaper) is made by Patrick Hoesly and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

If you like this image, please leave a comment. Thanks!

 

How do I get this onto my iPhone/iPad?

There are a number of ways to do this, however I think the easiest and fastest way is to download Flickr’s free app. Within the Flickr app you surf over to my photo feed to view the images (if you make me a contact then I’ll appear in the flickr contact list). When you find one you like, just click the download button and save the image directly to your phone/tablet. Quick & Simple!

 

How did you make it?

This background was made using graphic design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Filter Forge, Genetica, Wacom, Alien Skin, Topaz Labs, as well as several other programs.

 

About Patrick Hoesly

I’m a graphic illustrator, specializing in architectural illustrations and graphic design. I work with Architects, Interior Designers, and Landscape Architects, to help them visualize and sell their designs ...Or in other words... I make the fun/cool images!

Check out my Blog at ZooBoingReview.blogspot.com

Also take a look at my website at www.ZooBoing.com

 

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 are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is staying at her old family home for the festive season as she usually does between Christmas and Twelfth Night*. However, this year she had an extra reason for being with her family this Christmas.

 

For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening.

 

Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they did not make their engagement public until the new year: after the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement settled. Sir John motored across from Fontengil Park in the days following New Year and he and Lettice announced their engagement in the palatial Glynes drawing room before the Viscount and Lady Sadie the Countess, Leslie, Arabella and the Viscount’s sister Eglantyne (known by all the Chetwynd children affectionally as Aunt Egg). The announcement received somewhat awkwardly by the Viscount initially, until Lettice assured him that her choice to marry Sir John has nothing to do with undue influence, mistaken motivations, but perhaps the person most put out by the news is Aunt Egg who is not a great believer in the institution of marriage, and feels Lettice was perfectly fine as a modern unmarried woman. Lady Sadie, who Lettice thought would be thrilled by the announcement of her engagement, received the news with a somewhat muted response and she discreetly slipped away after drinking a toast to the newly engaged couple with a glass of fine champagne from the Glynes wine cellar.

 

We now find ourselves in the Glynes morning room where after noticing her prolonged absence, the Viscount has discovered his wife sitting quietly alone.

 

The Glynes morning room is very much Lady Sadie’s preserve, and the original classical Eighteenth Century design has been overlayed with the comfortable Edwardian clutter of her continual and conspicuous acquisition that is the hallmark of a lady of her age and social standing. China cabinets of beautiful porcelain line the walls. Clusters of mismatched chairs unholstered in cream fabric, tables and a floral chaise lounge, all from different eras, fill the room: set up to allow for the convivial conversation of the great and good of the county after church on a Sunday. The hand painted Georgian wallpaper can barely be seen for paintings and photographs in ornate gilded frames. The marble mantelpiece is covered by Royal Doulton figurines and more photos in silver frames. Several vases of Glynes’ hothouse flowers stand on occasional tables, but even their fragrance cannot smother Lady Sadie’s Yardley Lily of the Valley scent which is ever present in the air.

 

“I say! What are you doing in here, old girl?” the Viscount asks as she sees his wife sitting at her bonheur de jour** in the corner of the morning room. “The rest of the family is still in the drawing room, including Lally and Charles, who have returned from their visit to Bowood.***”

 

“I’m well aware of that, Cosmo. I heard them come back.” Lady Sadie says peevishly. “And less of the old, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Sorry Sadie.” the Viscount apologises. “It’s having all the young ones around and their new vernacular. It’s ‘old boy this’ and ‘old girl that’. It’s catching.”

 

“That’s alright, Cosmo, so long as it doesn’t catch on, here.” Lady Sadie replies with a cocked eyebrow.

 

“We were wondering where you’d gotten to.” the Viscount says. “I’ve opened another bottle of champagne.”

 

“Have you, dear?” Lady Sadie remarks absently.

 

“Of course I have, Sadie!” the Viscount chortles. “After all, it isn’t every day that our youngest daughter gets married.”

 

“I suppose not, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie replies rather laconically.

 

The Viscount watches his wife as she picks up a studio photograph taken in London by Bassano**** of their eldest daughter, Lally as a gangly young teenager, and Lettice as a girl of seven, both dressed in the pre-war uniform fashion of young girls: white lawn dresses with their hair tied in large satin bows. She sighs.

 

“Sir John is suggesting that we all motor over to Fontengil Park for luncheon, now that Lally and Charles are back.” the Viscount remarks awkwardly in an effort to break his wife’s unusual silence. “To celebrate the good news as it were. I thought it was rather a capital idea! Don’t you agree, Sadie?”

 

Lady Sadie doesn’t reply, instead staring deeply at the faces of her two daughters forever captured within Mr. Basanno’s lens, her look expectant, as if she were waiting for them to speak.

 

“You know, I must confess, I wasn’t too keen on him to begin with, nor the idea of he and Lettice marrying.” He looks guiltily at his wife. “I never really liked him, and always thought him a bit of an old lecher, sniffing around young women half his age, like our daughter. But Lettice assures me that she has made up her mind to marry him, and that there was no undue influence in the making of her decision.”

 

“Undue influence.” Lady Sadie muses in a deadpan voice.

 

“And now that I’ve really met him and chatted with him properly, I actually don’t mind Sir John, even if I do worry that he may be a tad old for Lettice. He’s quite a raconteur, very eloquent and worldly, and he obviously wants to make her happy. He might be just what she needs after all: a mature man who can help guide her in life, and indulge her too. He says he has no intention of stopping her career as an interior designer.”

 

Lady Sadie does not reply to her husband’s observations.

 

“Of course Eglantyne is quite against the engagement.” The Viscount chuckles. “But then, you know her opinions about marriage.”

 

Lady Sadie’s silence unnerves the Viscount as he tries desperately to fill the empty void between the pair of them.

 

“I thought I might get Harris to motor Leslie, Arabella, the grandchildren, you and I over there together.” the Viscount goes on when no opinion is forthcoming from his wife. “It might be fun for Harrold and Annabelle to come for a ride with us in the big old Daimler. Charles and Lally can go in their car with nanny and the baby.”

 

“Piers is hardly a baby anymore, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie opines as she puts down the photo of Lally and Lettice and picks up one of their eldest son, Leslie, as a boy of six in a Victorian sailor suit, with his soft blonde waves swept neatly behind his ears. “He’s two now, nearly three.” She then adds, “Won’t that be rather tiresome for Sir John’s cook, catering for us all?”

 

“We are connected to the exchange, Sadie. He can telephone ahead.”

 

“As you like.” she replies in a rather non-committal way. “Although I might cry off with one of my heads.”

 

“You don’t have one of your heads, Sadie.” the Viscount says darkly.

 

“How do you know I don’t, Cosmo. You don’t suffer them as I do.”

 

“I’ve been married to you long enough to know when you have a headache and when you don’t.” he replies. “And you certainly don’t have one now, even if you say you do.”

 

Putting down the photo of Leslie and picking up one of their second son, Lionel also in a sailor’s suit, and wearing a straw hat, Lady Sadie shudders. His look is sweet, but already at the tender age of three or four he was causing trouble, playing nasty tricks and hurting his nannies and worse, his own siblings. When Lettice was born a few years after the photograph was taken, Lady Sadie had to warn Lettice’s nurses that they were never to leave her unattended in Lionel’s presence, lest he smother her with a pillow, which he tried to do on several occasions when the nurses were slack in their observation of Lady Sadie’s rule or they were caught off guard.

 

“And of course Sir John can take Lettice over there in that topping blue Bugatti Torpedo***** of his.”

 

“Ghastly, vulgar and showy.” Lady Sadie opines. “Tearing up the country lanes as he speeds along them, so that no decent person of the county can walk them any more without fearing for their lives when he’s visiting the district.” She sniffs. “Or so I have it on good authority.”

 

She returns to her perusal of photos.

 

“I say, Sadie,” the Viscount remarks in surprise. “What’s the matter?”

 

“Whatever do you mean, Cosmo?” she asks, lifting her head from a baby photo of Leslie sitting on the corner of a button back****** sofa taken at the same time as the one she has of him leaning precariously against a rocking chair in a silver frame standing on the right side of her bonheur de jour.

 

“You know perfectly well.” the Viscount retorts. “Don’t be obtuse.”

 

“I’m not being obtuse, Cosmo!” Lady Sadie retorts.

 

The Viscount sighs, knowing in order to get an answer, he must play his wife’s game of teasing out the answer from her: a game he is well versed in playing after many years of marriage.

 

“You’re obviously not happy about the engagement, which I have to say surprises me. Why have you suddenly taken so much against Sir John? I thought you’d be delighted by the announcement.”

 

Lady Sadie ignores her husband’s question and picks up a large and ornate framed photograph of a wedding group taken in the early years of the Twentieth Century. It features a rather beaky looking bride in a pretty lace covered white wedding dress and a splendid black feather covered Edwardian picture hat. Her groom, dressed in his Sunday best suit with a boutonnière******* in his lapel and a derby on his head sits back in his seat, looking very proud. Around them stand various men and women in their Edwardian best, but the flat caps and mismatched jackets and trousers of the men and similarly mismatched outfits of the ladies suggest that this is not an upper-class wedding. In front of the bride a five year old Lettice stands proudly dressed as a flower girl in a white lace dress with ribbons in her hair, clutching a bouquet.

 

“Didn’t you take that photograph with your first Box Brownie********, Sadie?” the Viscount asks as he walks over and stands next to his wife and looks at the photograph.

 

“Yes, I did, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie acknowledges. “How good of you to remember.”

 

“Oh, who could forget that occasion?” the Viscount chortles sadly. “That was poor Elsie Bucknell’s wedding to that wastrel who turned her head with all his talk of being a tailor to all the great and good of Swindon, when in fact he was nothing but a con man from Manchester.”

 

“You were very good to settle the debts he left her with after he and his real wife absconded with all her money.” Sadie says, pointing at the rather pretty woman in white and a neat picture hat sitting to the groom’s right.

 

“Well, it was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? As lord of manor, it was my duty to support her, poor jilted woman.”

 

“Yes, the right thing.” Lady Sadie agrees with a sigh. “You’ve always done the right thing, Cosmo.”

 

“Well, I also did encourage her to marry him when she asked my opinion of him.”

 

“You’ve not always been the best judge of character, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie remarks.

 

The Viscount laughs. “What does that say about me choosing you as my bride then, Sadie?”

 

“I did imply that your poor judgements of character only happen sometimes, not always.” She runs her fingers over the glass in front of Lettice’s smiling face. “Lettice was as pleased as punch to be the flower girl at that wedding. Do you remember?”

 

“I do believe she thought all the smiles and gushing of the adulating congregation were for her and not for Elise behind her.”

 

“I do believe you are right, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie chuckles. “Did you know that’s why they call them, ‘Flappers’?”

 

“Who dear?”

 

“The newspapers and magazines.” Lady Sadie muses. “I found out not all that long ago, from Geraldine Evans of all people, if you can believe it,” she remarks with another chuckle, mentioning the elder of two genteel spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house, in Glynes village. “She told me that they call the young girls of the Bright Young Things********* ‘Flappers’ because it refers to the fact that when they were girls and their hair was still down, it was tied by flapping ribbons or tied in pigtails that flapped.” She points to the big bow in the young Lettice’s hair.

 

“No. No, I didn’t know.” the Viscount replies a little awkwardly. “Look, what’s all this got to do wi…”

 

“Thinking of the right thing, Cosmo, I really should take this photo out of the frame, what with all the sad connotations it has, but I can’t quite bear to do it.” Lady Sadie goes on, interrupting her husband. “I’m rather proud of this photograph.”

 

“There’s no need. Elise has long since left Glynes after all the scandal, so she won’t know. Anyway, it’s a very good shot, Sadie.” her husband agrees, putting his hand around her and giving her right shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

 

“I’ve never been what you’d call artistic, like Eglantyne,” Lady Sadie says, referring to her husband’s favourite younger sibling, who is an artist of some renown in London. “Or like Lettice, but I’m not bad at taking photographs.”

 

“I think you’re a dab hand at it, Sadie my dear.” He rubs his wife’s right forearm, and bestows a kiss on her greyish white waves atop her head. “Far better than me, or Leslie. But I ask again, what’s any of this to do with Sir John, and your sudden dislike of him?”

 

“You know, you think you know what, or who your children will become,” Lady Sadie says wistfully, replacing the photograph in the frame back on the surface of her bonheur de jour. “And yet, they always surprise you.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think either Leslie or Lally have been particularly surprising.” the Viscount retorts.

 

“No?”

 

“No. As the eldest son, Leslie has turned out to be the fine heir to the Glynes estate that we always wanted. He’s responsible, and goodness knows his insight and forward thinking has prevented us from finding ourselves in the straitened circumstances that the Brutons or poor Nigel Tyrwhitt and Isobel are in now. And now that he’s married, it will only be a matter of time before he and Arabella give us a grandson to carry on the Chetwynd line and one day become the next Viscount Wrexham.” He smiles indulgently at the thought. “And Lally’s marriage to Charles Lanchenbury is all we could hope for, for her. I mean, Charles may not inherit a hereditary title from old Lanchenbury, which is a bit of a pity. But still, he’s a successful businessman and she’ll never wont for anything. She seems to rather enjoy playing lady or the manor in High Wycombe with her brood.”

 

“Oh yes.”

 

“Lionel was a surprising one.” The Viscount picks up the photograph of his second son in his Victorian sailor’s outfit and wide brimmed straw hat that his wife had held before. “Who would have imagined that behind such an angelic face lurked the depraved character of the devil incarnate?” He feels his wife shudder again at the thought of their wayward son beneath his hand. “There, there, Sadie my dear.” he coos. “The further away from us he is, the less we have to think about him,” He heaves a great sigh of regret. “Or deal with his messy affairs.”

 

“You know I received a letter from him yesterday?” Lady Sadie asks.

 

“No.”

 

“Yes,” Lady Sadie snorts derisively. “From Durban of places, would you believe?”

 

“The same as young Spencely.”

 

“Yes! Isn’t that a coincidence? It was quite a good letter actually, and the first I’ve had since Leslie’s wedding where he doesn’t implore me to ask you to bring him back here. He writes that he went to Durban to show off two of his new Thoroughbreds to a perspective buyer: some playboy horse racing son of a nouveau riche businessman. It sounds like he’s had a bit of luck, as he seems quite flush at the moment, going to nightclubs and the like down there.”

 

“Squandering his earnings on gambling, women and god knows what else, down there, I’ll warrant.” the Viscount opines gruffly.

 

“No doubt.” Lady Sadie sighs.

 

“Poor Lettice.” the Viscount adds in a softer tone, as his mind shifts to his youngest daughter’s heartbreak at the hands of Selwyn Spencely.

 

“Aahh, and then there was Lettice.” Lady Sadie remarks, taking up a round gold frame featuring a studio photograph of a beaming Lettice at age ten in a smart winter coat and large brimmed hat, full of confidence sitting before the camera. “The most surprising child of all, not least of all because she was a surprise late pregnancy for me.”

 

“Oh, Lettice is no surprise to me, Sadie.” the Viscount retorts. “I mean, Eglantyne picked her as having an artistic temperament right from the beginning, and she was right. I knew she had more brains than our Lally has, which is why I gave her all those extra lessons.”

 

“You indulged her, Cosmo!” Lady Sadie remarks. “You’ve always spoiled her. So does Eglantyne. She’s your pet, and hers too.”

 

“Every bit as much as Leslie is yours, Sadie.” He points to the silver framed portrait of Leslie.

 

“You were the one who encouraged her to start up this ridiculous interior decoration nonsense.”

 

“Well, in reality it was really Eglantyne who drew my attention to her flair for design, but I’m glad that she did. Look at the successes she has had! She runs her own business, with very few hiccups or missteps,” He momentarily remembers the kerfuffle that there was with Lettice signing a contract drawn up by Lady Gladys Caxton’s lawyers without consulting the Chetwynd family lawyers. “And she’s very good at keeping accounts.”

 

“Excellent, she’ll make the perfect bookkeeper.” Lady Sadie remarks sarcastically.

 

“It will put her in good stead for running Sir John’s households, Sadie.” the Viscount tempers. “Goodness knows he has enough of them. And she has received accolades from Henry Tipping**********, printed in Country Life********** for all to see, and that is fine feather for her cap, you must confess.”

 

“I don’t deny that.” Lady Sadie agrees somewhat reluctantly.

 

“No, I always knew Lettice would be the greatest success of all our children.” the Viscount says proudly.

 

“Did you, Cosmo?”

 

“Of course I did, Sadie. I understand her.”

 

“You!” Lady Sadie scoffs. “You may decry that you love your youngest and favourite daughter so well, Cosmo, and without a doubt, you do. However, whatever you say, you don’t understand Lettice.”

 

“And you do, Sadie?” the Viscount retorts hotly. “When she comes home to lick her wounds after Zinnia sent Selwyn away, craving comfort, you drove her from the house, telling her she needed to throw herself into the social rounds, rather than stop and miss him. Is that understanding?” He folds his arms akimbo and looks away from his wife in disgust. “No wonder she kept her engagement to Sir John a secret for the last month or so, since you suddenly seem to despise her husband-to-be: a man whom I should like to point out, you thought was perfectly suitable for her not so very long ago. Sir John may not have the title of duke, but he has a title nonetheless, and I have no doubt that his fortune is equal to that of the Duke of Walmsford.”

 

“You misunderstand me, and my motives, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie replies, hurt by his words, but also resigned to the fact that he believes them. “As always, I am portrayed like one of Mrs. Maingot’s derided pantomime villains in the Glynes Christmas play.”

 

“If the cap fits, Sadie.”

 

“See, you think I don’t understand my children, but I assure you that, aside from Lionel, I do.”

 

“Who could ever understand that child of the devil, Sadie?”

 

“Indeed, well aside from our errant black sheep, I understand the others. You love them, Cosmo, probably far more than me, but I on the other hand, understand them.”

 

“How so, Sadie?”

 

“You misalign my actions because you don’t understand them, either. When Lettice came here after Zinnia packed Selwyn off to Durban, what did you do? You gave her a place to shelter, yes, but you mollycoddled her: feeding her shortbreads and allowing her to retreat from the world.”

 

“Well, that’s what she needed, Sadie.”

 

“No. That’s where you are wrong, Cosmo. She didn’t need mollycoddling. It just made things worse. It amplified her situation and how she felt as you allowed her to spend her empty days brooding. Lettice is apt to brood, when given the opportunity. What she really needed was to be told that the sun will still rise and set, in spite of her own innermost turmoil, and what she needed was to be sent back out into the world, so that she could be distracted, and build up her resilience. That’s what she needed, Cosmo, and I helped her achieve that. And that, my dear, is what I mean by truly understanding Lettice. Believe it or not, I understand her as a young woman, and I understand what she needs.”

 

“Well, if you wanted to build resilience in her, that’s what you’ve achieved, and admirably at that. Selwyn jilts our daughter and what does she do? Rather than moping, which is what you seem to think I would have encouraged her to do, she went out and got herself engaged to one of the most eligible bachelors in the county, in England no less. Yet you don’t seem at all happy about the engagement, even though you put Sir John into the mix at the Hunt Ball that you used as a marriage market for Lettice.”

 

“Once again, Cosmo, you see your daughter, but you don’t understand her.”

 

“Then pray enlighten me, Sadie because I certainly don’t understand you right at this moment.”

 

“Lettice’s heart is breaking, and ever since she was a child, when her heart is broken, she lashes out, like when Mopsy died. Remember her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel?”

 

“How could I forget that beautiful dog. But surely you aren’t comparing her tears and tantrums as a seven year old child, to now, Sadie? There are no tears this time, no tantrums.”

 

“But that’s where you are wrong, Cosmo. This is her tantrum. It just isn’t one that exhibits itself in the same way. Lettice is trying to prove to Selwyn,” She pauses for a moment and thinks. “No, more prove to Zinna, that she isn’t defeated by whatever nasty games she is playing to break the romance between Lettice and Selwyn. She’s trying to exact revenge on them both.” Lady Sadie sighs. “But she’s going about it all wrong.”

 

“What do you mean, Sadie?” The Viscount sighs as he sinks down onto the edge of one of the morning room chairs nearest him and looks across at his wife, who sits, slumped in her own seat at her desk, looking defeated.

 

“I blame myself really for this turn of events.” Lady Sadie gulps awkwardly. “I’m almost too ashamed to admit it, but I was misaligned in some of my thinking, and wrong in my judgement, and now the results have well and truly come home to roost.”

 

“What are you talking about, Sadie?”

 

“Sir John, Cosmo.” She says simply. “When I held that Hunt Ball, I practically threw Lettice at Sir John.”

 

“Well, to assuage your fears, Sadie, that is what I meant by confirming that there were no undue influences in Lettice’s decision.” the Viscount pronounces. “I asked her whether she felt obliged to marry Sir John because you had encouraged the match, and that she feared being stuck on the shelf.” He looks meaningfully at his wife. “But she says that neither of these had any influence on her decision. She says that Sir John isn’t perfect, but that he’s a good man, and that he isn’t lying to her. As I said - as you said – Sir John may not be young, but he’s eligible and wealthy to boot. Lettice will be chatelaine of a string of fine properties, and she’ll never have to worry about going without.”

 

“But Lettice is wrong about him nor lying to her.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

Lady Sadie snatches the lace handkerchief poking out of her left sleeve opening at her wrist and dabs her nose, sniffing as she does. “Several of my friends, Lally, and even Lettice tried to warn me about him. They said that he’s a lecherous man, with a penchant for younger women, actresses in particular.”

 

“Well,” the Viscount chuckles. “Plenty of men of good standing have been known to have the odd discreet elicit affair with a Gaiety Girl*********** or two.” He then blusters. “Not myself of course!”

 

“Of course not, Cosmo.” She reaches out one of her diamond spangled hands to her husband and takes his own proffered hand. “Never you. You were always too much of a gentleman to have a liaison with another woman. As I said, you always do the right thing, Cosmo. Do you know, I do believe that is why Zinnia stopped coming to our house parties. You weren’t for conquest, no matter how much she threw herself at you. And she did, quite shamelessly.”

 

“Did she?” the Viscount asks innocently.

 

“You know she did!” Lady Sadie slaps her husband’s wrist playfully. “Now who’s being obtuse?”

 

“Well, maybe I did sense her overtures towards me, but she never stood a chance, Sadie!” the Viscount replies with an earnest look. “You were only ever going to be the one for me.”

 

“That’s sweet of you Cosmo, and I appreciate it. But, for all his pedigree and wealth, and for all his apparent care for Lettice, your judge of character of Sir John is fatally flawed my dear.”

 

“Flawed?”

 

“Sir John Nettleford-Hughes is not for our youngest daughter.” Lady Sadie goes on. “Nor any good and upstanding young lady of society. I know now that he is a philanderer: discreet yes, but not discreet enough, and no matter how many houses he has, or wealth, he will never make Lettice happy – quite the opposite in fact, I fear, even if she can’t see that in her present state of besottedness. She will become the neglected, deserted wife and the ridicule of society. And that is why I am against Sir John, and this marriage, which will be as disastrous for her as dear Elsie Bucknell’s was for her.” Sadie points to the wedding party photograph again.

 

“What?”

 

“Yes.” Lady Sadie cocks an eyebrow as she gives her husband a withering look. “His latest conquest is an up-and-coming West End actress named Paula Young. Such a nasty, common name.” she opines. “Then again, it suits a nasty and common little upstart tart of an actress!”

 

“Sadie!”

 

“Sorry Cosmo, but that’s what she is, if she allows herself to be seen in such an…” Lady Sadie shudders. “An intimate situation with a man like Sir John.”

 

“Surely there is some kind of misunderstanding: just gossip, Sadie.”

 

“Gossip yes, but verified nonetheless.” Lady Sadie answers sadly. “Though I wish to god that I could say it wasn’t. My cousin Gwendolyn was having dinner at the Café Royal************ and saw them together herself less than a week ago.”

 

“What was Gwendolyn doing at the Café Royal?”

 

“She is a duchess, Cosmo dear, or have you forgotten?”

 

“Who could ever forget that Gwendolyn is the Duchess of Whiby, Sadie? She certainly won’t let anyone forget it.”

 

“Well, she was escorting her grand-nice Barbara who debuted last year as part of the London Season, because poor Monica had influenza and was confined to bed, and she noticed Sir John and that that cheap actress at a shaded corner table.”

 

“A simple dinner between two friends., Sadie.” the Viscount tries to explain the situation away.

 

“Gwendolyn says that he was practically devouring her as he lavished her bare forearms with kisses.” Lady Sadie replies with another shudder and a look of disgust. “In public! With an actress! How vulgar, and certainly not discreet, even if at a corner table in the shadows!”

 

“Gwendolyn goes looking for gossip wherever she goes, Sadie, even in places where it isn’t.” the Viscount cautions his wife.

 

“I know, but be that as it may, Cosmo, I also have it from your own sister, Eglantyne, that many years ago, before she was married, he also had an elicit affair with that awful romance novelist Gladys Caxton, whom Lettice and you had all the trouble with not long ago.”

 

“Well you know Eglantyne doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage.” the Viscount begins.

 

“This was before any of us even knew of the understanding reached between Lettice and Sir John, Cosmo.”

 

“Well,” he chuckles in an effort to shake he sudden concerns off. “If that affair was many years ago, who cares, Sadie? It has no significance now.”

 

Lady Sadie slides open a drawer of her bonheur de jour and takes out a sheet of paper on which is written a list of names.

 

“After Gwendolyn’s revelations, I did a bit of digging myself, and these are the actresses ingénues and parvenues I was able to connect him to.”

 

“The cad!” the Viscount gasps as his widened eyes run down the list. “There must be at lest two dozen women on this list.”

 

“There are twenty-nine to be exact, Cosmo, and they are only the ones I could find and link him to.”

 

“You know I always thought that he was an old letch.” the Viscount restates his long held belief again. “I can’t deny that I’d heard the rumours too, but being unmarried I didn’t pay them much mind. And when he showed up here today, all charm, and was so solicitous to Lettice, making my little girl so happy, well...”

 

“You were swayed on your judgment of this character.” Lady Sadie says with an arched eyebrow and a knowing look.

 

“I was.” the Viscount agrees. “I was persuaded: taken in by him as a matter-of-fact! What a fool I am!”

 

“Charming people can always beguile, dear Cosmo.”

 

“I shall go into the drawing room this very minute and have it out with him!” He gets to his feet, trembling with anger and frustration as his elegant hands form into fists. “I’ll fling Sir John out on his philandering ear!”

 

Lady Sadie reaches out again to still her husband, wrapping her hand comfortingly around his wrist. “No you won’t, Cosmo.” she says calmly and matter-of-factly, gazing up at him sadly. “It would be the wrong thing to do, and you know it. And, as we have agreed, you always do the right and decent thing. It would be too embarrassing to conduct such a scene before a houseful of guests, even if they are family: for Sir John, Leslie, Arabella, Lally, Eglantyne, me, you,” She lowers her voice and adds sadly. “For Lettice.”

 

“You’re right, Sadie.” the Viscount says, still trembling with anger. “Shall I speak to Lettice?” he suggests. “Pull her aside and have a discreet word with her?”

 

“Why, Cosmo?”

 

“I could forbid her to marry him. I could threaten to cut her allowance off.”

 

Lady Sadie laughs in a sad and tired fashion. “Cosmo, what purpose would that serve? She’s already told you that she intends to go through with this marriage, and that she won’t be swayed.”

 

“Well, Lettice might come to her senses if I tell her… tell her the reasons why I’m forbidding her to marry that… that bounder!”

 

“She knows already what kind of man Sir John is, Cosmo. She was one of the people who told me that he’s a philanderer.”

 

“What?”

 

“Lettice told me herself that he has a penchant for young ladies.”

 

“Well, if she hears it from me, her own father?”

 

“You’ll only drive her deeper into his arms, Cosmo. She’s angry. She’s hurting. She’s rebelling, God help us all!” Lady Sadie says knowingly. “She’s seeking revenge. And your threat to cut off Lettice’s allowance would be meaningless if she marries Sir John. As you have duly noted already, he’s richer than Croesus*************. Besides, thanks to you and Eglantyne she also has a successful business venture to support her now.”

 

“What the devil is she playing at then?” the Viscount asks. “Is it not bad enough that we have an errant son in Lionel, that we must now have a daughter who marries a known philanderer with a penchant for young actresses, and will doubtless end up being dragged through the divorce courts as a result, casting shame on the family?”

 

“I don’t know, Cosmo, other than she is lashing out at Lady Zinnia, exacting her revenge as she sees it.”

 

The Viscount looks down at his wife sadly and ponders. “You’re being remarkably calm about all this, Sadie.”

 

“Yes,” she replies with a derisive snigger as she starts to take up some of the lose photos and file them together. “I know. Usually, it’s me having histrionics, not you. However, there is something I keep reminding myself of that brings me solace as I mull this situation over in my mind.”

 

“What on earth can bring you solace about this disastrous situation Lettice has willingly foisted upon herself?”

 

Lady Sadie looks knowingly at her husband. “One swallow does not a summer make**************, Cosmo. And an engagement, especially a hasty one, does not necessarily lead to marriage.”

 

“What are you saying, Sadie?”

 

“I’m simply saying that if a man breaks off his engagement with a lady, he’s a cad and a bounder. However, a lady is perfectly entitled to break off her engagement with a gentleman. In fact,” She smiles smugly. “It is her prerogative to do so.”

 

“Are you suggesting that we should encourage Lettice to break her engagement with Sir John?” the Viscount asks. He sighs and rubs his cleanly shaven chin. “I say! What a clever ploy, Sadie.” he muses. “Quite brilliant! Quite Machiavellian, no less!”

 

“No, I’m not saying that at all, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie quips. “You misunderstand me again.” She releases an exasperated sigh. “This is also what I mean by you not understanding Lettice. There is no talking to her right now, she’s so focussed on her own hurt and anger, and is determined to exact her own misaligned form of revenge on Selwyn and Zinnia. At the moment you could say that Sir John is made of glass and will shatter into a thousand slivers the moment she marries him and stab her to death, and she’ll still marry him to spite them, because she simply cannot see straight. She’s so angry that she won’t listen to reason.” She settles back in her seat and steeples her fingers before her as she stares off into a future only she can see. “Lettice is like a blizzard: blustery, but eventually her anger will peter out.”

 

“So you are suggesting what?”

 

“So, what I’m suggesting is that in this case, we must be patient with Lettice. We must settle ourselves in for the long game, and just watch what happens when her storm peters out.”

 

“So, in your opinion, we do nothing, then?” the Viscount blasts.

 

“For the time being, no, Cosmo.”

 

“But if we do nothing, she’ll marry the cad, and then where will we be?”

 

“I’m not convinced, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie assures her husband. “I think that if we cool our heels and let things play out, Lettice will come to her senses in the fullness of time.”

 

“You seem very sure of that, Sadie.” the Viscount says with a dubious look at his wife.

 

“I am, Cosmo.”

 

“And if you’re wrong? What then?”

 

“I’m not.” she assures him. “But if I were to be, then we shall simply have to steer her back to her senses when she is in a frame of mind that best allows us to encourage her to break off this disastrous marriage with Sir John.”

 

The Viscount shudders. “How can I have a son-in-law who’s as old as I am, or older.”

 

“Not quite, Cosmo, dear.” Lady Sadie assures him. “He’s a year and a half younger than you. I know. I did my in depth research about him before putting him forward as a potential suitor in 1922.”

 

“Evidently not in depth enough, Sadie,” He holds up the sheet of paper before he wife before screwing it up in anger and throwing it vehemently into her waste paper basket. “If Lettice is now engaged to a wealthy womaniser who carries on with actresses in public.”

 

“Don’t worry.” Lady Sadie continues to soothe in a soft voice, “We won’t have Sir John as our son-in-law. You’ll see.”

 

“Now that I know what I know,” the Viscount sighs. “I just hope you’re right, Sadie.”

 

“I usually am, Cosmo,” Lady Sadie resumes shuffling the photographs. “In the end.”

 

*Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve depending upon the tradition) is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either the fifth of January or the sixth of January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas Day or the twenty-sixth of December. January the sixth is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, which begins the Epiphanytide season.

 

**A bonheur de jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers around 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable. Decorated on all sides, it was designed to sit in the middle of a room so that it could be admired from any angle.

 

***Bowood is a Grade I listed Georgian country house in Wiltshire, that has been owned for more than two hundred and fifty years by the Fitzmaurice family. The house, with interiors by Robert Adam, stands on extensive grounds which include a garden designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. It is adjacent to the village of Derry Hill, halfway between Calne and Chippenham. The greater part of the house was demolished in 1956.

 

****Alexander Bassano was an English photographer who was a leading royal and high society portrait photographer in Victorian London. He is known for his photo of the Earl Kitchener in the Lord Kitchener Wants You army recruitment poster during the First World War and his photographs of Queen Victoria. He opened his first studio in 1850 in Regent Street. The studio then moved to Piccadilly between 1859 and 1863, to Pall Mall and then to 25 Old Bond Street in 1877 where it remained until 1921 when it moved to Dover Street. There was also a Bassano branch studio at 132 King's Road, Brighton from 1893 to 1899.

 

*****Introduced in 1922, the Type 30 was the first production Bugatti to feature an Inline-8. Nicknamed the “Torpedo” because of its similar look to the wartime munition, at the time Bugatti opted to move to a small two-litre engine to make the car more saleable, lighter and cheap. The engine capacity also made the Type 30 eligible for Grand Prix racing, which was a new direction for the marque. Despite the modest engine capacity, the power output was still remarkable thanks to the triple-valve arrangement. Also benefiting the Type 30 was good road handling, braking and steering which was common throughout the marque. The Type 30 was also the first Bugatti to have front brakes.

 

******Button back upholstered furniture contains buttons embedded in the back of the sofa or chair, which are pulled tightly against the leather creating a shallow dimple effect. This is sometimes known as button tufting.

 

*******A boutonnière is a flower that someone wears in the buttonhole of, or fastened to, their jacket on a special occasion such as a wedding.

 

********The Brownie (or Box Brownie) was invented by Frank A. Brownell for the Eastman Kodak Company. Named after the Brownie characters popularised by the Canadian writer Palmer Cox, the camera was initially aimed at children. More than 150,000 Brownie cameras were shipped in the first year of production, and cost a mere five shillings in the United Kingdom. An improved model, called No. 2 Brownie, came in 1901, which produced larger photos, and was also a huge success. Initially marketed to children, with Kodak using them to popularise photography, it achieved broader appeal as people realised that, although very simple in design and operation, the Brownie could produce very good results under the right conditions. One of their most famous users at the time was the then Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra, who was an avid amateur photographer and helped to make the Box Brownie even more popular with the British public from all walks of life. As they were ubiquitous, many iconic shots were taken on Brownies. Jesuit priest Father Frank Browne sailed aboard the RMS Titanic between Southampton and Queenstown, taking many photographs of the ship’s interiors, passengers and crew with his Box Brownie. On the 15th of April 1912, Bernice Palmer used a Kodak Brownie 2A, Model A to photograph the iceberg that sank RMS Titanic as well as survivors hauled aboard RMS Carpathia, the ship on which Palmer was travelling. They were also taken to war by soldiers but by World War I the more compact Vest Pocket Kodak Camera as well as Kodak's Autographic Camera were the most frequently used. Another group of people that became posthumously known for their huge photo archive is the Nicholas II of Russia family, especially its four daughters who all used Box Brownie cameras.

 

*********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

**********Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.

 

***********Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society

 

************Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes

 

*************The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.

 

**************The idiom “richer than Croesus” means very wealthy. This term alludes to Croesus, the legendary King of Lydia and supposedly the richest man on earth. The simile was first recorded in English in 1577.

 

**************The expression “One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy” is attributed to Aristotle (384 – 322 BC).

 

Cluttered with photographs and furnishings, Lady Sadie’s bonheur de jour is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chetwynd’s framed family photos seen on the desk and hanging on the walls are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are almost all from Melody Jane’s Dollhouse Suppliers in the United Kingdom and are made of metal with glass in each. The largest frame on the right-hand side of the desk is actually a sterling silver miniature frame. It was made in Birmingham in 1908 and is hallmarked on the back of the frame. It has a red leather backing.

 

The remaining unframed photographs and photograph album on Lady Sadie’s desk are a 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe is known for his miniature books. Most of the books crated by him that I own 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. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. The photo album, although closed, contains pages of photos in old fashioned Victorian style floral frames on every page, just like a real Victorian photo album. Not only did Ken Blythe create books, he also created other 1:12 miniatures with paper and that includes the photographs. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. He also made the packets of seeds, which once again are copies of real packets of Webbs seeds and the envelopes sitting in the rack to the left of the desk. 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. I hope that you enjoy this peek at just two of hundreds of his books that I own, and that it makes you smile with its sheer whimsy!

 

The vase of primroses in the middle of the desk is a delicate 1:12 artisan porcelain miniature made and painted by hand by Ann Dalton.

 

The desk and its matching chair is a Salon Reine design, hand painted and copied from an Eighteenth Century design, made by Bespaq. All the drawers open and it has a lidded rack at either end. Bespaq is a high-end miniature furniture maker with high attention to detail and quality.

 

The wallpaper is a copy of an Eighteenth Century blossom pattern.

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 in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Edith sighs as she places the notepad and pencil in front of her on the deal kitchen, enjoying the silence that has fallen across the flat in her mistress’ absence as she sips some tea from her delftware teacup and enjoys a biscuit from the brightly painted biscuit barrel. Lettice has gone to Charring Cross to acquire a present for her oldest childhood chum and fellow member of the aristocracy, Gerald Bruton. It will soon be his birthday, and Lettice is treating him to an evening at the Café Royal* in Regent Street. However, she also wants something less ephemeral than a glittering evening out to dinner for Gerald to look back on in the years ahead as he turns twenty-five.

 

Edith picks up the pencil and starts listing the items that she knows she needs to order from Willison’s Grocers around the corner on Binney Street. As she lists flour, a dozen eggs and caster sugar** the pencil scratches across the surface, and Edith thinks of seeing her beau, grocer’s delivery boy and part time window dresser, Frank Leadbetter. Her heart skips a beat as she thinks about his handsome face smiling down at her, and his arms wrapping her in one of his all-embracing hugs that she loves so much. Frank might be a wiry young man, but his arms are strong from all the heavy lifting of boxes of groceries for Mr. Willison. Edith and Frank have been stepping out together since that fateful day in February 1922 when Edith flippantly suggested to Frank that Mrs. Boothby, the charwoman*** that comes to do the hard graft around the flat commented on how she felt Edith was sweet on Frank. Since their first date to see ‘After the Ball is Over’ – a moving picture that starred one of Lettice’s clients, actress Wanette Ward – at the Premier in East Ham**** the pair have spent a great deal of their spare time together, and their relationship has become very serious. Edith knows that it is only a matter of time before Frank proposes, and whilst that doesn’t mean any immediate change to the current rhythm of her life, she knows that eventually, once she is married, she will be obliged to leave service***** and become a housewife. She has been keeping money aside to help her when she and Frank finally set up house, and she has started a few scrapbook in which she cuts out and affixes images of wedding gowns and cakes from Lettice’s discarded magazines, as well as sketches of wedding frocks and bridesmaids’ dresses that she has done on late evenings after Lettice has retired to bed.

 

Edith is still daydreaming at the kitchen table when a gentle tapping at the kitchen door leading to the scullery breaks into her thoughts.

 

“Yes?” Edith queries, surprised at the tapping, and then even more startled when Lettice’s head pops around the edge of the door.

 

When Edith first came to work for Lettice, Lettice had the rather unnerving, and to Edith’s mind irritating and irrational habit of walking into the service area of the flat, such as the kitchen or scullery, seeking Edith for some reason or other, rather than ringing the servants’ bells located around the public rooms. It was only once Wanetta Ward had raised the idea with Lettice that whilst Cavendish mews might be her flat, and it might be her kitchen, that it was really Edith’s preserve, that she stopped the habit of just barging in.

 

“Miss Lettice!” Edith gasps, and quickly forces herself out of her comfortable Windsor chair and stumbles onto her feet. “I didn’t know you were home yet. Did you have a nice trip to Charring Cross?” She drops an awkward curtsey.

 

“I did, thank you Edith.” Lettice gushes, stepping through the door, still holding her parcels from Mr. Mayhew’s bookshop******. “I bought Gera… err… Mr. Bruton, a lovely book on Art Nouveau design.” She squeezes the parcel a little more closely to her chest as she speaks.

 

“That must be nice for you, Miss.” Edith remarks a little awkwardly.

 

“Yes, it is.” Lettice agrees, as she looks around the tidy kitchen.

 

Edith notices that Lettice is still dressed in her pretty floral summer frock, designed by Gerald, with its handkerchief point hem and matching cloche hat made by Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford.

 

“Did you need something, Miss?” Edith presses, anxious that Lettice is regressing back into her old habit of barging into the kitchen unannounced.

 

“No… yes… no… well…” Lettice stammers, suddenly lunging towards the opposite side of the kitchen table, dropping her parcels and purse onto its scrubbed surface. “Well yes, actually Edith.”

 

“Miss?”

 

“Well… look, I know that I promised that I would ring the bell when I wanted you, and I have, haven’t I Edith?”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, somewhat perplexed by her mistress’ response.

 

“But this time it’s different, don’t you see?”

 

Edith cocks an eyebrow over her right eye and looks quizzically at Lettice. “Err… no. I’m afraid I don’t see.”

 

“Oh please, please Edith,” Lettice flaps her well manicured and bejewelled hand in the air between the two women. “Do sit back down.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith manages to reply as she sinks back down into her seat and watches as Lettice scurries across the black and white chequered linoleum and drags across the second kitchen chair to the table and sits opposite her.

 

“Well this is far more personal, and as it pertains to you specifically,” Edith’s face drains of colour at Lettice’s words. “Oh! Oh no!” Lettice quickly assures her with a calming gesticulation. “It’s nothing bad, dear Edith. I’m not going to dismiss you.”

 

Edith releases the deep breath she has inhaled with a sigh of relief, and she sinks more comfortably into the rounded back of the worn Windsor chair. “Oh, you did give me a turn then, Miss. I really thought for a moment that I was in for it.”

 

“Good heavens no, Edith.” Lettice smiles. “That is the last thing that would ever happen! You’re the best maid a girl like me could ask for.” She pauses as the smile falls from her painted lips. “Which is all the more reason why this is an awkward conversation to have, but one I had to have in here, in your,” She waves her hands around her. “Well, your realm as it were.” She coughs with embarrassment as her face begins to colour.

 

“Awkward, Miss?” Edith queries again. “I… I’m sorry. Call me dim, Miss, but I really can’t say that I’m following you.”

 

Lettice’s shoulders slump as she releases a frustrated sigh. “I’ve come to apologise, Edith.”

 

“Apologise, Miss?”

 

“Yes,” Lettice admits guiltily. “I’ve been,” She casts her eyes downwards to the table surface as she speaks. “A bit of a beast lately.”

 

“Oh I wouldn’t go…” Edith begins to defend, but the words die on her lips as Lettice holds up a hand to stop her protestations.

 

“No. It’s true. I have been a beast. And I’m sorry, Edith. Truly I am. Mr. Bruton pointed out how sharp I was with you at dinner the other night. You didn’t deserve to be berated like that, especially in front of Mr. Brunton, whom I know you respect.”

 

“I do, Miss.”

 

“Yes, well, he obviously has a lot of respect for you too, Edith.”

 

“He does, Miss?” Edith’s eyes grow wide and her jaw goes slack in surprise at the revelation.

 

“He does. Firstly, he called me out on my bad behaviour the other evening, which he had every right to do. Secondly, he complimented you on being such a good maid. And thirdly he said that he’d employ you as a seamstress if he could.”

 

“He would, Miss?” Edith purrs with pleasure, flushing at the compliment.

 

“Mr. Bruton has proven himself to be far more observant than me. I seem not to be able to notice the pearl under my very nose, Edith.” Lettice chuckles awkwardly. “He’s noticed how smartly turned out you are on the occasions he has seen you coming and going on your afternoons off when he’s been here with me, and I haven’t.”

 

“Goodness!” Edith’s blush deepens as she considers that a couturier such as Gerald has observed her humble dressmaking skills.

 

“So there you go! Your skills haven’t gone unnoticed, and I for one am going to try and be more grateful for your services around here, Edith. You really are a brick, you know, and I’m so lucky to have you here to look after me and try and keep things in order for me.”

 

“And answer that infernal contraption!” she remarks poignantly, referring to the Bakelite******* and chrome telephone in Lettice’s Cavendish Mews drawing room which she dislikes intensely.

 

“And answer the telephone, which I know you loathe, dear Edith.” Lettice agrees with a relieved sigh, knowing that Edith will forgive her for her recent rudeness. “See, you really are a brick!”

 

“Well, thank you, Miss.” Edith smiles broadly.

 

“I’m sorry I’ve been so short and snappy, lately. It’s not an excuse, or rather it shouldn’t be, but… well you know the lady novelist you like whose flat I am redecorating?”

 

“Madeline St John, do you mean, Miss?” Edith perks up, excited about anything that Lettice might be willing to divulge about her favourite romance novelist.

 

“Yes. Well, Lady Gladys, whom you know as Madeline St John, has been very difficult with me.”

 

“Ohe she’s been lovely with me over that infernal telephone when I’ve answered it and she’s been on the line. She’s ever so polite and chatty. She’s even promised to sign a few copies of her novels to give to you, to give to me, Miss.”

 

“Yes, well, not to disparage her, but that’s the public face that Lady Gladys wants everyone to see. However the private Lady Gladys is not so kind.”

 

“Why do you say that, Miss.”

 

“Because Edith, I sadly know the truth now, but after it was too late to stop her from being difficult and controlling. You see, I am acting on her wishes to decorate a flat for her, but the flat belongs to a young lady around your age, and that young lady can’t express her own opinion as to how she wants her flat to be decorated.”

 

“Oh that’s terrible, Miss! Poor her!”

 

“Poor her, indeed.”

 

“So what are you going to do to right the situation, Miss?”

 

“Well, I’m not exactly sure. I’m not even sure I can do anything.”

 

“Well,” Edith says comfortingly, picking up her pencil again and rolling it around in her fingers. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to fix it, Miss.”

 

Noticing Edith’s pad for the first time, Lettice clears her throat. She glances at the kitchen clock as it ticks quietly away on the wall. “My, my! Is that the time? Well, I mustn’t tarry here any longer and hold you up from your duties, Edith.” She stands and gathers up her parcels. “Are you writing to a friend?”

 

“No, Miss.” Edith holds up her pad. “It’s a grocery list, Miss.”

 

“Oh! Yes… well… very good, Edith.”

 

Lettice turns away and walks towards the kitchen door. Just as she is about to cross the threshold of the scullery, she turns back.

 

“You wouldn’t, would you, Edith?”

 

“Wouldn’t I what, Miss?”

 

“Leave me to go and work for Mr, Bruton as a seamstress.”

 

Edith feels the blush of embarrassment at the fact that her dressmaking skills have been noticed fill her cheeks.

 

“Never mind.” Lettice continues. “Don’t answer that, and forget I’ve asked you.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, standing and dropping another hurried bob curtsey.

 

“I’ll raise your wages, just to be sure that Mr. Bruton can’t entice you away.” Lettice adds. “I should pay you more for all that you do, anyway. How does another four shillings a month sound?”

 

“Four shillings?” Edith gasps in amazement.

 

“That’s settled then.” Lettice smiles. “And I promise to try and be less prickly. I promise things will get better once Lady Gladys’ commission is finished.”

 

As Lettice retreats, her clicking footsteps quickly dissipating across the linoleum of the scullery before she disappears through the green baize door leading to the Cavendish Mews flat’s dining room, Edith can barely contain her excitement. In the space of a few minutes she has received an unexpected apology, discovered that her skills as a seamstress may pay her dividends in the future, and been given a generous increase to her wages. She settles back into her seat, reaches across and snatches up a chocolate biscuit, allowing her lids to close over her eyes as she does, and bask in the glory of what has just come to pass.

 

*The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.

 

**Caster sugar is the term for very fine granulated sugar in the United Kingdom. British bakers and cooks value it for making meringues, custards, sweets, mousses, and a number of baked goods. In the United States, caster sugar is usually sold under the name "superfine sugar." It is also sometimes referred to as baking sugar or casting sugar, and can be spelled as "castor." The term "caster" comes from the fact that the sugar was placed in a shaker with a perforated top, called a caster, and used to sprinkle on fresh fruit. I have several sugar casters in my own antique silver collection from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

 

***A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

****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.

 

*****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.

 

******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.

 

*******Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:

 

Edith’s deal kitchen table is set for tea for one. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The brightly painted biscuit barrel, attributed to the style created by famous Staffordshire pottery paintress Clarice Cliff, containing a replica miniature selection of biscuits a 1:12 artisan piece acquired from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Delftware cup, saucer, plate, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase. The pencil on the pad is a 1:12 miniature as well, and is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.

 

Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan pieces.

 

The bright brass pieces hanging on the wall or standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas, but the three frypans I bought from a High Street specialist in dolls and dolls’ house furnishings when I was a teenager. The spice drawers you can just see hanging on the wall to the upper right-hand corner of the photo came from the same shop as the frypans, but were bought about a year before the pans.

 

In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.

 

On its top stand various jars of spices and tins of ingredients used in everyday cooking in the 1920s. The glass jars of preserves and spices came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom, whilst the other items come from by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, who specialise in 1:12 miniature grocery items, with particular attention paid to their labelling. Several other tins of household goods made by Little Tings Dollhouse Miniatures stand on the white painted surface of the dresser.

 

In addition to brass pots, the Delftware tea service and tins of household groceries, the dresser also contains two Cornishware cannisters which I found from an online stockist of 1;12 dollhouse miniatures. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors. Attached to the edge of the dresser is a gleaming meat mincer which is a 1:12 miniature that I acquired from a collector in the Netherlands. The demijohns underneath the dresser I have had since I was a teenager and were acquired from a small toy shop in London. The lettuce in the basket underneath the dresser I acquired from an auction house some years ago as part of a lot of hand made artisan miniatures.

 

On the bench in the background stands a bread crock. There is also a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.

 

The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

San Francisco retailer Limn asked four interior designers to create looks using Vitra's iconic modern furniture. "Four by Four," the resulting exhibition that ran Nov. 2008 through Jan. 2009, included designer Nicole Hollis's fresh take on a library nook. Verner Panton's Amoebe Highback chair (1970) is at left, while Charles and Ray Eames's La Chaise (1948) lounges beneath a chinchilla throw in the corner.

 

Photo from nicolehollis.com.

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.

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.

 

For nearly a year Lettice has been patiently awaiting the return of her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Now Lettice has been made aware by Lady Zinnia that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice has been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he has become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice recently reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening.

 

Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they are not making their engagement public until the new year: after the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement settles. So, Lettice and Sir John have gone on about their separate lives, but in the lead up to Christmas they invariably ended up running into one another at the last mad rush of parties before everyone who hadn’t already, decamped to the country to celebrate Christmas.

 

Today we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas. She motored down to Wiltshire with her old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His family, the Brutons, are neighbours to the Cheywynds with their properties sharing boundaries. That is how Gerald and Lettice came to be such good friends. However, whilst both families are landed gentry with lineage going back centuries, unlike Lettice’s family, Gerald’s live in a much smaller baronial manor house and are in much more straitened circumstances.

 

It is Christmas morning 1924, and we find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where the extended Chetwynd family is gathered around the splendidly decked out Christmas tree. Present are the Viscount and his wife, Lady Sadie, Leslie and Arabella, Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), her children, Lettice’s nephews and niece, Harrold, Annabelle and Piers, the children’s rather crisply starched nanny, and this year, Arabella’s mother, Lady Isobel and her brother, Nigel, Lord Tyrwhitt who have come the short distance from the neighbouring property adjoining the Glynes estate to the south, Garstanton Park, the grand Gothic Victorian home of the Tyrwhitts. The only members of the family not present are lally’s husband Charles and the Viscount’s sister, Eglantyne (known affectionately by the Viscount’s children as Aunt Egg) who have gone to enjoy the elicit pleasure of a cigarette together. Lady Sadie does not approve of men smoking indoors, much less her emancipated sister-in-law, so she will not counternance either of them smoking in her drawing room, even on Christmas Day. None of the family’s faithful retainers are present, as the tradition is that servants are given Christmas Day off after breakfast until the late afternoon, when they return and prepare to serve the family’s Christmas dinner in the Glynes dining room.

 

“Oh I am glad that Pater invited Nigel and Aunt Isobel over here for Christmas.” Lettice says with a smile as she watches Nigel help clear space on the Chinese silk drawing room carpet for he and Lettice’s nephew Harrold to play.

 

Last year Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt died suddenly, thrusting his wife, Lady Isobel into the role of widowed dowager and catapulting his unprepared eldest son, Nigel, into the title of Lord Tyrwhitt, and the position as a lord of the manor, one that Nigel felt quite ready for.

 

“Well, with just the two of them rolling around that big, empty and cold mausoleum over the knoll,” Leslie replies, referring to Garstanton Park as he waves his hands in the house’s general direction. “And Bella here with me, it only stood to reason. Bella can be with her mother,” He looks lovingly over at his wife who sits at the feet of her mother, Lady Isobel, resting her head on her knee like a child and smiling contentedly as the pair of them watch Nigel play with Lally’s children, Lady Isobel unconsciously stroking Bella’s raven waves. “And besides, Garstanton Park is too full of sadness for them to actually enjoy Christmas there this year. Better they be here with us where there is plenty of cheer and the sound of children’s laughter to distract them.”

 

“Agreed, Leslie. And we do have fun every year, don’t we?”

 

“I always look forward to you and Lally coming home for Christmas every year.” He sips coffee from the dainty gilt demitasse in his hand.

 

“What, even now that you have a beautiful and captivating wife on your arm, Leslie?” Lettice asks in mild disbelief.

 

“Of course I do! I mean, Bella is my wife, but you are my sisters, and that makes your homecoming pretty special, Tice.”

 

“Oh, don’t let Bella hear you say that too loudly, Leslie.” Lettice giggles. “She’ll get jealous.”

 

“I say Tice old girl,” Leslie remarks quietly with a solicitous tone as he takes a seat beside his little sister on one of the elegant gilt upholstered Louis Quinze drawing room sofas, cradling his cup of coffee. “I hope you won’t mind me saying this.”

 

“If you start off the conversation like that,” Lettice replies warily. “I shouldn’t wonder if I won’t.” Her pretty blue eyes widen over the edge of her own larger cup as she takes a sip of tea.

 

“I was only going to say that I think you’re being remarkably brave and stoic about all that rather beastly business with Selwyn Spencely.” Leslie admits, giving his sister a guilty sideways glance.

 

“Oh that!” Lettice replies, lowering her teacup into its saucer and waving her hand dismissively.

 

“Now don’t be like that, Tice.” Leslie chides. “In this case, despite whatever advice Mamma may give you as a jeune fille à marier*, false modesty doesn’t suit you. I may be a little biased,” He blushes as he speaks. “But I just want you to know that I think Spencely is a fool to let you go like that. He hardly needs the money that will accompany this diamond heiress into their marriage.”

 

“Kitty Avendale.” Lettice interrupts, uttering the name of the only child of Australian adventurer and thrill seeker turned Kenyan diamond mine owner, Richard Avendale, which was linked to her former fiancée.

 

“Whatever her name is, I wish Spencely no joy from the marriage.” Leslie spits hotly.

 

“Shh, shh,” Lettice hushes her brother calmly, placing a hand on his left forearm and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You don’t mean that Leslie. I know you don’t.”

 

“Oh don’t I?” Leslie mutters.

 

“Of course you don’t, Leslie.” Lettice replies resolutely. “You are my kind and gallant eldest brother, and therefore far too good hearted to wish him ill like that. I certainly don’t want Selwyn to be unhappy with his choice of a wife. He has enough to deal with, what with his horrible mother, whom he doesn’t have a choice not to have.” She sighs. “Anyway Leslie, it doesn’t matter now.” she adds, unable to quite hide the sadness in her voice, or the half-hearted smile on her lips. “It is all in the past.”

 

“Well, all the same I think Spencely is a cad and a bounder, so there it is! I’ve said it now.”

 

“Then let us say no more about it, Leslie.” Lettice holds up one of her elegant hands delicately in an effort to put the matter to bed. “After all, it is Christmas, and Christmas is supposed to be about kindness and good will to all men, is it not?”

 

“I suppose so.” Leslie agrees begrudgingly. “Still, I do think that after your initial reactions when that harridan of a mother of his sent Spencely away, you’ve been remarkably calm and good about it all.”

 

Like she did with her sister a few weeks before, Lettice longs to confide in her elder brother about her recent secret engagement to Sir John Nettleford-Hughes. Of all her siblings, Leslie is the one she feels closest to, in spite of the fact that he is the eldest and she the youngest child of the Viscount and Lady Sadie. Leslie has always been her protector, especially when it came to their brother Lionel and his ceaseless teasing and tormenting of Lettice when they were children, and he is the one who understands her the best. However, she also knows that like her sister and the rest of her family, Leslie would consider her sudden engagement on the heels of Selwyn’s abandonment of her a rash reaction. Unlike Lally, Leslie doesn’t entirely dislike Sir John, but he is well aware that he is a philanderer and does have a penchant for younger women, having witnessed Sir John leave Lady Sadie’s 1922 Hunt ball with a much younger female party guest on his arm after Lettice spurned his romantic overtures. Lettice suspects that if Leslie knew about her secret engagement, he would pressure her to break it off, and at the moment she is still too emotionally fragile and raw from Lady Zinnia’s revelations that she would not be able to refuse him. She knows, deep in her broken heart, that her reasoning behind keeping her engagement a secret until after the dust settles on her break with Selwyn is wise and sound, so once again she keeps her own counsel and remains silent on the matter of her engagement.

 

“In fact,” Leslie goes on, not noticing his sister’s deeply ponderous look as she carefully turns her head and looks at the beautifully decorated Chetwynd family Christmas tree covered in gold baubles and tinsel. “I’d go so far as to say you have been rather sporting about all this.”

 

“Well,” She takes a deep breath. “As I was saying to Lally a fortnight ago when she came to stay with me in London, it was never a definite thing that Selwyn was going to come back to me after a year. And with Selwyn’s absence for that long, I didn’t feel this ending quite so acutely, as I did his departure.”

 

As Lettice takes another sip of her tea, she is amazed by how quickly she has become accustomed to lying about her true feelings for Selwyn and his abandonment of their engagement. Her mother, Lady Sadie, sitting across from her in her usual position in the armchair closest to the drawing room fireplace, has schooled her well.

 

“Now, I’d like that to be an end of the matter, Leslie.” Lettice goes on steadfastly.

 

“Well…”

 

“At least for today, Leslie.” Lettice implores. “It is Christmas Day after all, and I want it to be happy one for the children – for us all.”

 

“Alright, Tice old girl.”

 

“Good, Leslie, old chap.” Lettice replies gratefully.

 

Lettice turns her attention to the tumble of beautiful new toys and brightly coloured discarded Christmas wrapping that litters the floor around the gaily decorated Christmas tree. Amidst it all, Lally’s children and Nigel play with their new toys. Lettice’s eldest nephew, Harrold, guides his smart new racing motorcar over the terrain of books, boxes and gold wrapping with Nigel’s assistance, whilst Annabelle, Lettice’s niece, picks out characters to play with in her new puppet theatre. She smiles with delight as she takes up one of Little Red Riding Hood carrying a basket, frozen forever in a skipping motion. Piers, Lettice’s youngest nephew, at the age of two, is still very much more interested in the colourful and noisy Christmas paper, which he crinkles up with glee, although Lettice has noticed that he is developing an affinity for the large brown mohair plush bear with the big red bow that his mother and father gave him for Christmas.

 

“You win again, Tice my dear.” Lally remarks as she stalks across from the tea table where she has just poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.

 

“What on earth do you mean, Lally?” Lettice asks, looking up at her sister, still dressed, as they all are, in a suitably sombre outfit worn to the Glynes Church of England Christmas service a short while ago. They will all change shortly into lighter and happier outfits before luncheon in the dining room.

 

“That of course,” Lally nods in the direction of the puppet theatre. “Aunt Tice may not live with us, Leslie, but she knows how to win my children over in a trice.”

 

“Oh Lally!” Lettice says dismissively. “That’s not true! Look how much Piers loves the bear you… err Father Christmas… gave him.”

 

“That’s only because he is still too young and remains immune to your charming gifts.” Lally laughs. “He still prefers the boxes they come in.”

 

“Come now, Master Piers,” Charles and Lally’s nanny fusses as she scurries over from her place standing next to the Christmas tree, watching the children like a benevolent angel in her uniform of a black moiré dress and a white apron. She tries to take a piece of metallic pink Christmas wrapping from his tight grasp as he tears it. “Give that to me. Give that to Nanny.” she cajoles.

 

Lettice, Leslie and Lally all watch with concern as little Piers’ face screws up and suddenly starts to redden with anger as his nanny tugs at the paper.

 

“It’s alright, Nanny dear.” Lally says swiftly, quick to avoid the potential of a two year old’s tantrum in the Glynes drawing room on Christmas Day.

 

“But Madam!” Nanny exclaims, a disgruntled look crossing her face as she feels undermined by Lally.

 

“He’s not doing any harm, Nanny. Let him play with the paper if he fancies it. At least it keeps him quiet, and my father,” Lally points to the Viscount’s slumped figure nestled into the corner of another of the Louis Quinze sofas. “Is having a morning snooze. Let him do so in peace, please Nanny.”

 

“Oh! Very good, Madam.” Nanny replies with frustration, retreating to her place, muttering as she does so.

 

“Well done, Lally, old girl!” Leslie says with approval.

 

“Ahh, ahh.” Lally cautions her brother light heartedly. “Less of the old thank you.” She self-consciously pats her sandy blonde hair streaked with grey, still set, albeit not as smartly as it had been, in a style similar to that which the fashionable London West End hairdresser had set it a few weeks beforehand when she stayed at Lettice’s cavendish Mews flat.

 

“It’s all this new small talk, Lettice brings with her from London,” Leslie defends himself. “It’s ‘old boy this’ and ‘old girl that’. It’s… it’s catching to we provincial county folk!”

 

“I say!” Lettice pouts. “That’s jolly unfair, Leslie, blaming me for your choices of language,” She pauses and then adds for effect, “Old boy.”

 

Lally gives her brother a sceptical look and shakes her head slightly.

 

“Poor Pater.” Lettice sighs, nodding in her father’s direction. “Playing Father Christmas seems to have worn him out this year.”

 

“Well, he’s not getting any younger.” Lally opines. “None of us are.”

 

“I think Pappa’s tiredness has more to do with Reverend Arbuthnot’s dreary and long Christmas sermon this morning.” Leslie suggests. “Than his age.”

 

“Oh yes, he did go on rather, didn’t he!” Lettice exclaims, raising her hand to her mouth covering what started as an imitation yawn, but then turned into a real one. “I thought he would never finish.”

 

“Well, isn’t that what the Reverend is supposed to do, Tice?” Leslie asks. “Pontificate I mean.”

 

“You’re only defending him because he married you and Bella.” Lettice retorts.

 

“Well, pontification to excess is not a quality I greatly admire in our Reverend Arbuthnot.” Lally opines in a definite tone. “I think I might have screamed if I heard him say ‘love thy neighbour this Christmas Day’ one more time.”

 

“I should have liked to have seen that!” Lettice giggles. “Imagine Reverend Arbuthnot’s face!”

 

“It might have woken up a few of the parishioners.” Lesley laughs before sipping some more coffee from his cup.

 

“Including Pater.” Lettice adds.

 

“Well, Mamma managed to stay awake throughout the sermon this morning,” Lally remarks. “And she doesn’t usually rise before ten o’clock. Yet look at her now, bright as button.”

 

The three siblings look at their mother who, dressed in a smart navy blue and pink floral patterned georgette frock with a lace collar, sits and speaks earnestly with her granddaughter, twisting her long ropes of pearls cascading down her front in her hands as Annabelle discusses which characters are best to have in her puppet show cast.

 

“Well, to be fair, it was Pappa who did the hosting of the carol singers last night in the hall.” Leslie says.

 

“What rubbish!” Lally scoffs. “We all went in and hosted them. With Mrs. Maingot leading the carollers and riding high on the crest of success of her latest Christmas panto,” She rolls her eyes sarcastically. “We could hardly leave her for Pappa to manage alone.”

 

“She can talk for hours without taking a breath.” Lettice agrees. “In fact, I don’t think she would even notice if everyone walked out of the hall and she was on her own, she’s so self-obsessed.” She turns to her brother. “Now she’s a pontificator if ever there was one!” She gives him a knowing look and nods.

 

“I think Bramley enjoyed giving out the snifters of brandy to all the carollers.” Lally adds, referring to the Chetwynd’s faithful butler. “Just like he did in the old days.”

 

“By the way,” Leslie asks. “Do you know who decided to revive the tradition of having the second Christmas tree in the entrance hall?”

 

“What does it matter, Leslie?” Lettice asks.

 

“Well, it’s just that Pappa stopped doing it the year after the war broke out, and I didn’t authorise it.”

 

“Do you need to authorise it?” Lally queries, arching her expertly plucked eyebrow as she looks to her sister. “It is just a tree after all.”

 

“I’m just saying, it does create a bit of a mess.”

 

“I’m sure that Bramley, or more likely Moira as head parlour maid, sweep up the dropped needles and dried candlewax, Leslie, not you.” Lally laughs.

 

“And now the word has spread that its back again, all the village make a pilgrimage to see it every Christmas now, which means we’re forever hosting groups of visitors in dribs and drabs nearly every night in the last few weeks before Christmas. Even with their beastly head colds, the Miss Evanses trudged up from the village.” Leslie adds, mentioning the two genteel busybody spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house, in Glynes village. “Snuffling and coughing all over the place.”

 

“Well aren’t we full of Christmas cheer, dear brother?” Lally remarks sarcastically.

 

“Didn’t you hear Reverent Arbuthnot’s sermon this morning?” Lettice adds cheekily with a smirk. “Love thy neighbour this Christmas, brother dear.”

 

“Now don’t you start!” Leslie replies, wagging a finger warningly at his sister, but the happy glint in his eyes betrays the fact that he isn’t really cross with her.

 

“As a matter of fact, I think, I did.” Lally says.

 

“Did what?” Leslie asks.

 

“Revived the Christmas tradition of the second tree in the hall. I mentioned it to Pappa after Harrold asked me about the red glass baubles amidst the Christmas decorations.”

 

“No, we both did, Lally.” Lettice defends her sister. “After Harrod asked us about the decorations a few Christmases ago. What, 1922?”

 

“No,” Lally corrects. “It was 1921, because we were talking about the Hunt Ball Mamma threw for you in 1922.”

 

“That’s right! It was 1921. Anyway, regardless of when we mentioned it, I for one am not unhappy about the resurrection of that particular Christmas tradition at Glynes.” Lettice nods. “I think it looks wonderful in the hall, all sparkling with tinsel and glass baubles and lighted candles, greeting guests and family alike. It’s good to bring some joy and cheer to the villagers, even the Miss Evanses and Mrs. Maingot.”

 

“I agree, Tice.” Lally adds with a smile. “It seems to me like the world is finally coming out of the shadows of the war, so we should do our part to make the world bright, especially at Christmas.”

 

“In fact,” Lettice giggles. “You could make the world even brighter, and have no candle wax for Moira to scrub off the marble floors if you bought those electric faerie lights Lally and I saw in Selfridge’s windows a few weeks ago.”

 

“You can’t have Little-Bo-Peep and Little Red Riding Hood in the same play, Belle!” Harrold’s voice complains, his whining tones piercing the siblings’ conversation.

 

“Yes! Yes, Sadie my dear.” the Viscount mutters with a snort, awoken from his slumber by his grandson’s cries.

 

“Why not, Harrold?” Annabelle cries petulantly.

 

“Because you just can’t, Belle!” Harrold spits back.

 

“Harrold!” Lally exclaims.

 

“Says who?” asks Annabelle, folding her arms akimbo and pouting.

 

“It’s ‘says whom’, Annabelle dear.” Lady Sadie, always the instructress, corrects her granddaughter from her seat.

 

“Says whom, then?” Annabelle glowers at her elder brother.

 

“Harrold!” Lally says again.

 

“Well it’s true Mummy!” Harrold retorts. “They come from different stories. Tell her!”

 

“Harrold that’s not the point.” Lally says sternly. “Now apologise to your sister.”

 

“But I…”

 

“Harrold Cosmo Lanchenbury!” Lally says sternly, using her son’s middle name, given in honour of his grandfather, the Viscount. “Apologise to your sister at once.”

 

“Shall I take him upstairs to the school room, Madam?” Nanny pipes up with eagerness from the shadows cast by the shimmeringly beautiful Christmas tree.

 

“No!” Lally snaps with steely resolve, causing the older woman to shudder slightly at the sharp rebuke from her employer. Lally recovers herself immediately and continues in a softer voice. “No, thank you, Nanny. That won’t be necessary.” She looks at her son seriously. “Harrold is old enough to know when he has spoken out of turn, and gentlemanly enough,” She emphasises the last two words as she speaks. “To know when to apologise.”

 

“What’s this?” Aunt Egg asks she and Lally’s husband, Charles, walk back into the Glynes drawing room after finishing their cigarettes in the library.

 

“Lally darling?” Charles asks, taking in the scene with his son standing next to the Christmas tree amidst piles of presents, red faced next to his sister who is obviously upset, whilst Lally stands over them and the rest of the family look at him from their respective seats. There is a tenseness in the air. “What is it? What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing that I can’t manage Charles.” Lally replies calmly. “It’s fine.”

 

“It doesn’t appear fine to me, darling.” Charles replies in concern.

 

“Harrold and Annabelle were just having the fiercest argument, Charles dear,” Lady Sadie adds a little nervously. “Weren’t you, my lambs? And Harrold was just about to apologise to his sister.”

 

On cue, Piers, who until this time had been happily playing without compliant by himself releases a loud and unhappy bellow.

 

“Oh. Take Piers up to the nursery, Nanny.” Lally hisses in frustration.

 

“Yes Madam!” Nanny says smiling with satisfaction as she scuttles and fusses her way noisily through the presents and wrapping to where Piers sits. She coos as she picks him up, sweeping him into her arms and carries the snivelling child towards the drawing room door.

 

“Come here my lambs,” Lady Sadie says, opening her arms and encouraging the two remaining children to come over to her as she sits on the edge of her gilt chair. “That’s it.” She envelops them, winding an arm around each of them as she guides them to stand facing one another to either side of her. “Now, look at Grandmamma, both of you.” Both children lift their lolling heads and downcast eyes and gaze into their grandmother’s face. “You know that Christmas is a time of traditions, don’t you?” Both the children nod, Harrold slowly and Annabelle more animatedly. “We have a plum pudding today, which Mrs. Casterton makes for us every year on the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity*** with thirteen ingredients which represent Christ and the twelve apostles.”

 

“Yes Grandmamma.” Annabelle answers sweetly. “You and and Mrs. Casterton let us stir it.”

 

“That’s right, Annabelle.” Lady Sadie goes on. “You stir it east to west to honour the Magi****, and that is part of the tradition too.” She sighs deeply. “And you know that you receive gifts, as we all do, just as the Christ Child did when he received gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the Magi. That’s a tradition too.”

 

“Yes Grandmamma.” the children murmur, their voices the only things to break the silence of the room except for the quiet ticking of the clocks on the mantle and sideboard, the contented crackle of the fire in the grate and the distant wailing of Piers down the hall as Nanny takes him upstairs.

 

“And the carol singers come and join us in the hall just out there on Christmas Eve,” Lady Sadie points one of her diamond adorned gnarled fingers to the doorway which Nanny slipped out through with Piers in her arms moments ago. “And we sing beneath the Christmas tree. You restarted that tradition Harrold. Do you remember?”

 

Harrold nods. “Mummy says that Grandpappa stopped it when the war broke out, Grandmamma.”

 

“And so I did, Harrold my boy.” the Viscount concurs from his corner of the sofa. “But you restarted it, and by Jove we all enjoy it, don’t we?”

 

“Yes Grandpappa.” Harrold replies.

 

“And Mrs. Maingot delights us every year with a new Christmas pantomime.” Lady Sadie goes on, her words resulting in a smattering of stifled sniggers and quiet gasps of horror from the adults around her, all of whom witnessed the embarrassing scene of Mr. Lewis the church verger reprising his role Dame Trott***** in Christmas 1924’s performance of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ in the Glynes village hall a few nights ago. “You enjoy them don’t you, my lambs, because they are magical?” When both children nod affirmatively, Lady Sadie beams and rubs their backs kindly. “And every year, Harrold, she mixes up all the characters to make the pantomime as magical as she can, and that includes breaking a few rules and taking characters from some stories to add to the one she and the Glynes Village Players are performing.” She pauses for a moment and then looks at her grandson. “So, young man, when your sister says that she wants to put Little Red Riding Hood and Little-Bo-Peep into the same play she is performing with her lovely new puppet theatre, she is entitled to do so. Don’t you think so?”

 

“I suppose so, Grandmamma.” Harrold says somewhat begrudgingly.

 

“Now, correct me if my observations are wrong, Harrold, but could it be that you are just a teensy bit jealous that your sister is making all these plans for her grand play and not including you too?”

 

“Maybe, Grandmamma.” he replies very quietly.

 

“More than maybe, young man!” Lady Sadie withdraws her right arm from around her grandson and squeezes his chin, which is fast losing the fat of childhood as he starts to grow older. “Grandmamma knows your heart better than you do; I think.” She chuckles. “Now, I have a proposition for the two of you children.” She claps her hands together animatedly. “Annabelle, if Harrold apologises to you, will you let him help you put together your play?”

 

“Oh yes Grandmamma.” Annabelle exclaims, crouching down slightly before rising up on her toes in a gesture of pride and happiness. “I’d love that!”

 

“And Harrold, would you like to help Annabelle put on her play for all of us?” Lady Sadie asks her grandson.

 

“Yes Grandmamma.” he affirms with a beaming smile.

 

“Then apologise to her, and you can both get on with it then!” the old woman says matter-of-factly. “It will be no time at all before we go in for Christmas luncheon, and I for one, want a show before I do.”

 

Harrold apologises to his sister immediately, and as if a magic spell has been cast, the two siblings hurry back to the puppet theatre and begin pulling out as many of the characters that came with it as they can find amidst the paper and other presents, giggling and chatting as if nothing had ever been awry between them.

 

“There!” Lady Sadie says to her startled family around her as she rises from her seat with a dignified nod. “Crisis averted! Peace is restored. Merry Christmas to all, and good will to all men.”

 

“Mamma!” Lally gasps as her elderly mother starts to walk proudly and purposefully across the drawing room carpet.

 

“What, Lalage?”

 

“Well, you amaze me, Mamma.” she says in surprise. “I never realised that you were such a consummate diplomat!”

 

“Yes, I suppose my diplomacy skills are a little wasted here.” Lady Sadie replies with a sigh a she looks around at all the awestruck faces watching her. Then with a very straight face as she goes on, “I should have married the Viceroy of India whilst I had the chance, but I married your father instead, so that’s an end to it.” She walks through the audience of her family, all with eyes agog and mouths hanging slack as she moves amongst them. “Now, after that crisis aversion, I think I might be entitled to a glass of sherry. Charles!”

 

“Sadie?” her son-in-law queries.

 

“A sherry for me, if you please.” She pauses. “But just a small one, mind you.”

 

“Yes Sadie.”

 

Lady Sadie turns back to her three children present in her house this Christmas. “Anyone would think I’d never managed a squabble between siblings at Christmas before. I’ll have you know that when you three were little, even without the eager and willing assistance of your dreaded brother, you all used to fight and argue on Christmas Day!” She points her finger at them, her diamond and sapphire ring glittering as she does. “And that was a Glynes Christmas tradition too!”

 

“Mamma!” Lettice gasps in surprise.

 

Lady Sadie accepts the proffered small glass of sherry from her son-in-law. “Now, if you would all excuse me. I’m going to take my sherry upstairs and have a little lie down before luncheon. Your father isn’t the only one who found Reverend Arbuthnot’s Christmas sermon a little tiring this morning. If one of you would kindly send Baxter up to me when the children are ready to show their play, and I’ll come back down after she helps me change for luncheon.”

 

And without so much as a glance back at her surprised family, Lady Sadie walks out the door of the drawing room, smiling with amusement as she does.

 

*A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.

 

**A pantomime (shortened to “panto”) is a theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually produced around Christmas.

 

***Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

****The Magi are also known as the Three Wise Men or the Three Kings, who are the distinguished foreigners who visit Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh in homage to him.

 

*****Dame Trott is the long suffering mother of Jack in the Christmas pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk. She is outrageous, brash and loud, and traditionally played by a man in drag.

  

This fun Christmas tableau full of festive presents and wrapping may not appear to be all you think it is as first, for it is made up of pieces out of my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The books unwrapped for Christmas here are all 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. What might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. Not only did Ken Blythe create books, he also created other 1:12 miniatures with paper and that includes the wonderful puppet theatre you see here. The theatre includes scenery like cottages, hills and trees, three different backdrops and over a dozen characters including Little Red Riding Hood, the Big bad Wolf, Little-Bo-Peep, Cinderella, Prince Charming and the Faerie Godmother from Cinderella, Jemima Puddle Duck and Mother Goose. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. 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 beautiful teddy bear with his sweet face and red bow, the boxed doll, the toy motor car and the knights jousting all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The lead knights have been painstakingly painted by hand with incredible detail and attention paid to their livery.

 

The Chetwynd Christmas tree in the background, beautifully decorated with garlands, tinsel, bows and golden baubles is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Margie and Mike Balough also made all the beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts gathered around its base.

 

The discarded pink and gold Christmas wrapping on the carpet of the drawing room are in reality foil wrappers from miniature Haigh’s Chocolate Easter Eggs.

 

The gilt salon chair is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The three piece Louis XV suite of settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.

 

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

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 are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, and her best friend and fellow maid-of-all-work, Hilda are visiting Edith’s beloved parents for a few hours on their Sunday off before going on to join Edith’s beau, grocer’s boy, Frank Leadbetter, for a late afternoon showing of ‘Claude Duval’* at the nearby Willesden Hippodrome**. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith.

 

We find ourselves in the heart of the Watsford’s family home, Ada’s cosy kitchen at the back of the terrace. Ada is holding court, standing at her worn round kitchen table as she gives Hilda an impromptu lesson in baking as she rolls out some pale biscuit dough with her trusty old wooden rolling pin which had belonged to her mother before her. Her daughter and Hilda sit at the table on tall ladderback chairs to either side of her, Edith with a bowl of creamy white marzipan icing in front of her, and Hilda with a bowl of green icing next to her. A plate of iced biscuits sits in the middle of the table between the three of them. As Ada shares her baking wisdom with Hilda, the girls ice and decorate the biscuits Ada has already baked in the oven of her range. George sits in his comfortable Windsor chair next to the warm range and listens with half an ear as he reads the newspaper.

 

“And then all you have to do is roll the pastry out flat on a liberally floured board like this Hilda love. Dust the top with a bit more flour before rolling it out, and coat your rolling pin with plenty flour too to prevent it from sticking or tearing the dough as you roll it out. Oh, and make sure your biscuit cutters are nicely floured,” Ada instructs Hilda who watches her with rapt attention as Ada takes her silver metal Christmas tree biscuit cutter and pushes it with a gentle press into the dough rolled out before her. “And that will ensure that your biscuit comes out nice and cleanly.” She takes her kitchen knife and deftly slips it between her board and the dough and removes a bit of the dough around the bottom of the Christmas tree shape on the outside of the cutter and then slides the knife under the tree shape to support the bottom of her freshly made biscuit and withdraws it. Placing it to the side of her wooden board closest to Hilda, Ada removes the biscuit cutter to reveal a cleanly cut and perfectly shaped Christmas tree shaped biscuit. “See.”

 

“Goodness Mrs. W.!” Hilda gasps. “You make it look so simple!”

 

Hilda quickly scribbles Ada’s words of wisdom down using a pencil in the little notebook she brought with her in her handbag for just that purpose.

 

“It is that simple, Hilda love.” Ada says with satisfaction, looking down at her biscuit next to her rolled out dough, before beaming brightly at her daughter’s best friend.

 

“Mum always makes things look easy, Hilda.” Edith says as she carefully lathers some white icing onto a golden brown baked Christmas tree biscuit. “She uses really simple, failproof recipes, and that’s what makes her cooking so good.”

 

“Did you teach Edith all her plain cooking skills, Mrs. W.?” Hilda asks.

 

“Well, most of them, Hilda love, but once she had mastered the basics,” Ada dusts her hands with flour and then rubs another biscuit cutter, this one in the shape of bell. “Edith could adapt what I’d taught her and make up her own recipes easily enough, and learn other people’s recipes.”

 

“I wish I’d had a mum like you, Mrs. W.” Hilda remarks. “Oh, not that my Mum is mean or nasty or anything!” she adds quickly. “But she’s not a good cook like you are, so when Edith found me the job with Mr. and Mrs. Channon as their maid-of-all-work, I wasn’t prepared to cook. I didn’t really know how to cook, even plain cooking.”

 

“Yes, but look how far you’ve come since then!” Edith replies encouragingly, looking earnestly at her friend.

 

“Only thanks to you, Edith, teaching me your mum’s basic recipes.” Hilda insists.

 

“Well, I’m glad that Edith’s being a help to you, Hilda love.” Ada remarks.

 

“I’m just glad that Mr. and Mrs. Channon dine out a lot, and use Harrods catering department for any fancy dinners at home. I’m sure I couldn’t serve your recipes for beef stew and shepherd’s pie that Edith taught me, Mrs. W., to any of their fine friends that they have over for dinner parties.”

 

“Edith’s quite a dab hand in the kitchen,” Ada remarks. “Although,” she adds as she eyes her daughter critically as she starts to move the icing she has plopped onto the biscuit base across the surface of it with her spatula to smooth it. “She’s not the best at icing biscuits just yet.”

 

“What Mum?” Edith exclaims.

 

“Well look, Edith love!” Ada chides, slapping her palms together, sending forth a shower of light white motes flour. “You’ve added far too much icing onto that biscuit! Here!” She reaches across and takes both the biscuit and the spatula from her daughter and scrapes the icing back into the bowl. She smiles as she looks at her daughter. “Now watch how much of the icing I scoop up on the end of the spatula.” She dips the flat blade into the bowl and scoops up a small amount of creamy white icing and carefully spreads it with zig-zag strokes across the biscuit from the wider bottom up to the top. “See.” She holds the biscuit up so both Edith and Hilda can observe. “A smaller amount is much easier to work with. And if you don’t have enough, you can always scoop up a tiny scraping more to finish it off.” She smiles as she easily moves the icing around to the edge of the biscuit. “There.”

 

“Thanks awfully, Mum!” Edith says gratefully, accepting the iced biscuit and the spatula back.

 

“Now you decorate it with those pretty silver sugar balls, Edith love.” Ada directs her daughter. “You’re far better at that than me.” She turns to Hilda. “Edith has more patience for that kind of thing than I do. She got that from her dad.”

 

“She did, that!” George pipes up from his comfortable seat drawn up to the old kitchen range as it radiates heat. He lowers his copy of The Sunday Express*** which crumples nosily as he does so. “Some things in this world need patience, like growing marrows.”

 

“I need patience to deal with you, George Watsford!” Ada says, turning around and placing her still floured hands on her ample hips and giving her husband a dubious look.

 

“Growing marrows, Mr. W.?” Hilda queries.

 

“Oh, ignore him, Hilda!” Edith giggles. “Dad’s mad keen about his marrows, even when he can’t grow them as well as Mr. Johnston does.”

 

“You watch, oh-she-of-little-faith,” George nods in his daughter’s direction and gives her a serious look. “Mr. Pyecroft and I are going work out what’s in his fertiliser and grow a marrow bigger than he’s ever seen! You mark my words!”

 

“Yes Dad!” Edith replies, rolling her eyes and giving her best friend across the table a cheeky smile as she giggles.

 

“I’ll have no talk of fertiliser in my kitchen, George,” Ada says. “And that’s a fact!” Pointing to the Sunday Express open across his lap she adds, “Back to your crossword****.”

 

“With pleasure,” George remarks, coughing and clearing his throat as he lifts the paper back up again, obscuring his face from the three women around the kitchen table.

 

“Now Hilda love, you try icing a biscuit too.” Ada encourages, nodding at the large white bowl of green icing at Hilda’s right. “Do it the same way you just saw me do it. Just take up a bit of icing on the end of your spatula and smear it across left to right as you work your way up the biscuit.”

 

“Alright Mrs. W., I’ll try.” Hilda replies as she picks up a Christmas tree biscuit from the baked but undecorated stack of festively shaped biscuits on her left.

 

“You saw how much I scooped up on the end of the spatula, so you know now how not to overload it.” She watches carefully as Hilda dips her spatula into the bowl of peppermint green icing and coats it with a small amount of icing. “Good love. Good!” she approves as Hilda begins to smear the icing across the surface of a biscuit. “Edith and I will make a baker of you yet.”

 

“Oh I don’t know about that Mrs. W.” Hilda says doubtfully.

 

“Yes we will, Hilda.” Edith replies encouragingly. “We’ll have you baking cakes in no time!”

 

“And then, you’ll have every hungry young man come pounding on your door, Hilda love, you mark my words.” George says from behind the newspaper. “And you’ll never be short of handsome young suitors.”

 

“Mr. W!” Hilda blushes at George’s remark.

 

“Dad!” Edith exclaims.

 

“I’m just stating the truth, Edith love.” George replies as he lowers the newspaper again. Closing it and folding it in half, he slips his pen into his argyle check printed***** brown, white and burnt orange vest. He drops the paper on the hearth beside his chair and stands up. He takes a few steps across the flagstones to the kitchen table and stands next to his wife. Wrapping his arm lovingly around her shoulder he tells his daughter and her friend, “Your mum wouldn’t have been nearly as attractive the day I met her at that picnic in Roundwood Park****** organised by the Vicar, if she hadn’t been carrying a tin of her best biscuits at the time. She knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” He leans forward and reaches across the table, snatching up a decorated Christmas tree biscuit and scoffing half of it into his mouth before anyone can stop him.

 

“George!” Ada slaps her husband’s shirt clad forearm. “We’ll have no biscuits for Christmas Day, between you eating my biscuits and Edith eating the icing!” she scolds with a good natured chuckle. “Now back to your newspaper this minute,” She picks up her flour dusted rolling pin in her right hand and starts lightly slapping her open left hand palm warningly and eyes her husband. “Before I bar you from my kitchen and banish you to the front parlour.”

 

“What?” George exclaims. “With no fire up there in the grate! I’ll freeze!”

 

“It would serve you right, for pinching one of my biscuits! But since it’s so close to Christmas, and I’m full of festive cheer today, I’ll give you a reprieve. Back to your crossword, Mr. W.,” Ada says warningly, using Hilda’s shortened version of their surname, but saying it with a slight smirk to show that she isn’t really cross with him. “Right this minute, or you’ll be out in the cold!”

 

“Yes Mrs. W.!” George replies, munching contentedly on his mouthful of biscuit, holding the green iced trunk and lower branches of his stolen biscuit in his right hand.

 

“That’s very good, Hilda love.” Ada says, returning her attention to Hilda and looking at her biscuit, as George settles back down in his chair and takes up his newspaper again.

 

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. W.!” Hilda says with a smile as her face blanches at Ada’s praise.

 

“Oh! That looks beautiful, Edith love!” Ada exclaims looking at the pretty pattern of silver balls her daughter has made on the surface of her own white icing clad biscuit. “It looks too good to eat.”

 

“Almost!” Goerge pipes up from behind the Sunday Express again.

 

“Crossword!” Ada warns him.

 

Ada settles back into her rhythm of stamping out biscuits from her flattened dough: first a bell, then another Christmas tree, then a heart which she knows Edith is most looking forward to decorating for Frank for Christmas. She smiles with pleasure as she presses the heart cutter down lightly into the slightly resistant pillow like dough. The Watsford’s kitchen will once again be busy this Christmas with George and Ada’s seafaring son and Edith’s younger brother, Bert, on shore leave for the second year in a row just in time for Christmas, and Frank Leadbetter and his Scottish grandmother, old Mrs. McTavish, around their kitchen table. Ada’s elder sister, Maud, offered to host the Watsfords at the crowded little terrace in nearby Willesen that she shares with her husband Sydney and their five children, Harry, William, Ann, Nelly and Constance, but Ada declined. The two-up two-down******* Victorian terrace house isn’t much larger than the Watsford’s own Harlesden terrace and can barely fit Maud and her family, with Harry and William sleeping in the skillion roofed******** enclosed back verandah which serves as their narrow and draughty bedroom. So, with Frank and Mrs. McTavish to include in the number of guests for Christmas Day, Ada thought better of her sister’s kind offer. She, George, Edith and Bert will visit Maud and her family on Boxing Day instead, which is traditionally when the two families get together.

 

“Are all these biscuits for Christmas Day, Mrs. W.?” Hilda asks, breaking into Ada’s consciousness.

 

“Deary me, no, Hilda love!” Ada exclaims, raising her flour dusted hands in protest. “I always make tins of my homemade biscuits to give as gifts every Christmas.”

 

“That’s a good idea, Mrs. W.!” Hilda remarks. “Everyone enjoys a nice homemade biscuit or two with their tea, whoever they are, don’t they?”

 

“I for one, find one of Ada’s biscuits with tea to be one of life’s pleasures.” George remarks from behind the newspaper. Ada and the girls listen as he pops the last of his stolen biscuit in his mouth and munches on it noisily, sighing as he does.

 

“Well, play your cards right, and behave yourself, George,” Ada replies. “And you may have one with your tea when Hilda, Edith and I have finished.”

 

“No-one says no to a tin of Mum’s homemade biscuits.” Edith adds as she slips her spatula into her bowl of white icing and withdraws a much smaller amount of icing this time before starting on decorating a heart shaped biscuit from her pile.

 

“Much better amount, Edith love.” Ada nods approvingly.

 

“Will we have enough biscuits to give some to Frank and Mrs. McTavish on Christmas Day?” Edith asks.

 

“Didn’t we last year, Edith love?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So we will again this year, then.”

 

“That’s good, Mum. Thank you.”

 

“That’s alright, love. Although I know you’re only asking me because you just want to give Frank all the heart shaped biscuits you bake and decorate.” Ada smiles indulgently. “Don’t you, Edith love?”

 

Edith gasps and flushes at her mother’s wry observation. “Oh no, Mum!” she defends herself, but then adds, “Well, not all the heart biscuits, at any rate.”

 

“Aha!” Ada clucks. “I better make a few extra hearts then, hadn’t I?”

 

“It’s a shame you can’t come for Christmas too, Hilda!” Edith says. “Think what fun we’d all have playing charades********* after our Christmas dinner!”

 

“Oh thank you Edith,” Hilda replies. “That would be ever so much fun, but you’ve scarcely got enough room around this table for your family and Frank and his gran, never mind me.”

 

“We always have room at our table on Christmas Day for any waif or stray at a loose end.” George says, lowing the paper and looking earnestly at Hilda. “Isn’t that right, Ada?”

 

“George is right, Hilda.” Ada presses out a final gingerbread man biscuit and slips it along with the others on a battered old baking tray, ready for the hot oven behind her. She looks at Hilda and gives her a friendly smile. “You’d be very welcome.”

 

“Oh, it’s kind of you, Mrs. W., but I can’t even though I’d like to.”

 

“Well, I imagine you’ll want to be with your own family on Christmas Day, anyway.” Ada remarks as she picks up the tray of unbaked biscuits, turns around and walks over to the range where she opens the door of the baking oven with the aid of a protective tea towel and slips the tray into its glowing interior.

 

“Oh it isn’t that, Mum. Hilda will be in Shropshire with Mr. and Mrs. Channon on Christmas Day, pretending to Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid again, to help her save face.”

 

“What’s that, Hilda love? Christmas with strangers, so far away?”

 

“Mr. and Mrs. Channon are hardly strangers, Mrs. W.,” Hilda answers. “And I don’t really mind.”

 

Edith smiles over the table at her friend decorating her biscuit with a random smattering of silver balls, rather than a carefully arranged pattern like her. “At least you’ll know all the quirks about how the Lancravens’ house works this year, and how you’re supposed to behave, where you’re supposed to sit, and what name you’ll have to answer to.”

 

“Edith’s is right, Mrs. W..” Hilda explains. “Mr. and Mrs. Channon and Mr. Channon’s parents the Marquis and Marchioness of Taunton have been invited to spend Christmas and New Year again this year at Lady Lancraven’s country house in Shropshire. We went there last Christmas. Lady Lancraven invites them so they can enjoy the foxhunt she hosts on Boxing Day. I have to go and pretend to be Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid, as everyone else who stays has a lady’s maid, or a valet if you’re a man.”

 

“They call Hilda ‘Channon’ because she is Mrs. Channon’s maid.” Edith giggles.

 

“Yes, that’s how it is in those old country houses.” Ada says knowingly. “It’s a most peculiar tradition. Just as peculiar as the idea that men and women riding horses to chase after a fox is seen as sporting! How anyone can hurt a poor little fox and hunt it down’s beyond me.” Ada mutters shaking her head as she returns to the table from the oven.

 

“It’s what they do, Ada love,” George says, lowing his paper again. “And they’ve been doing it for generations. It’s a rum business**********, and that’s a fact, but,” He shrugs. “There’ll be no changing them now.”

 

“Luckily I don’t have to go to that part of the Christmas and New Year celebrations, Mr. W., but I do have to say that as servants, Lady Lancraven lets us have a bit of fun at Christmas. There is even a servants’ ball*********** held for us on Twelfth Night************.”

 

“I remember the servant’s ball at the big house my Mum used to work in back when I was still a little girl.” Ada says wistfully. “I was allowed to stay up late as a treat and go with Mum to the party, so long as I sat in the corner and kept out of trouble. Oh, the music was grand!” She sighs deeply as she remembers. “There was an upright piano in the servant’s hall which one of the men played, and someone else played the fiddle, and of course everyone sang back in those days with no wireless to listen to for entertainment. The master and mistress of the house would come down for a short while and he would dance with the housekeeper and she with the butler.”

 

“It’s the same at Lady Lancraven’s, although there’ll be no Lord Lancraven this year, since she’s a widow now.”

 

“The Merry Widow,” Edith giggles. “Is what the society pages call her.”

 

“Edith!” Ada chides.

 

“I’m only quoting what they say in the newspapers, Mum.”

 

“You’re quoting idle and wicked gossip, young lady,” Ada wags her finger at Edith. “And you know I can’t abide nasty gossip, even if someone thinks it worthy to print in the newspapers.”

 

“No Mum.” Edith mutters apologetically.

 

“As I remember it,” Ada remarks, shifting the conversation back to her own childhood memories of her life when Harlesden was still semi-rural************. “The Master and Mistress always found it a bit awkward, dancing and mixing with the servants, and they never stayed for long, but this was when the old Queen was still on the throne, and times were a bit different and more formal then.”

 

“Well, Lord and Lady Lancraven didn’t stay for long either, Mrs. W., but some of the younger guests upstairs who had come to stay for Twelfth Night festivities last year came down and joined us. It was rather a lark!”

 

“I hope none of those young men from upstairs tried to take advantage of you, Hilda!”

 

“No, just a leering footman.” Edith remarks, remembering her friend talk about Lady Lancraven’s presumptuous first footman who winked at Hilda and flirted with her last year.

 

“What’s that?” Ada queries.

 

“It’s alright, Mrs. W.. I have protection when I go there. The other reason why Mrs. Channon accepted the Lancravens’ invitation last year, and this year again, is because my elder sister, Emily, is Lady Lancraven’s lady’s maid, so it means I get to spend Christmas and New Year with her.”

 

“Oh that must be nice for you, Hilda love, especially since you’ll be so far from home.” Ada remarks as she begins pulling all the excess pieces of dough together and re-forming it into a ball to roll out again.

 

“And this year, because my sister explained that I was going up there again as Mrs. Channon’s lady’s maid, she asked Lady Lancraven if she could invite our Mum and bring her up from London by train and have her stay for Christmas and New Year, and she said yes!”

 

“Won’t your dad mind, Hilda love?” Ada asks. “He’ll be lonely at Christmas without your mum for company.”

 

Both girls stop decorating their biscuits and an awkward silence falls across the table.

 

“No Mrs. W.,” Hilda finally says. “My Dad was killed in the Great War, out in France, you see.”

 

“Oh!” Ada raises her hands to her cheeks, feeling the heat of an awkward blush beneath her fingers. “Oh I’m sorry love. I… I didn’t know.”

 

“It’s alright, Mrs. W.. I never told you.” Hilda replies. “Anyway, it’s Mum who gets lonely, what with Ronnie on the other side of the world for work, and Emily and me in service.”

 

“No doubt the fare up to Shropshire is at your sister’s expense.” George remarks dourly, tutting as he changes the subject slightly and shakes the newspaper noisily.

 

“No Mr. W.!” Hilda replies as she slides her decorated biscuit onto the white porcelain plate in the centre of the kitchen table. “Lady Lancraven’s not like that at all! She’s ever so nice, and generous too. She’s so nice in fact that she’s footing the cost of the railway ticket for Mum from London to Shropshire and back home again after Twelfth Night.”

 

“Well, that is a turn up for the books, Hilda love.” George remarks with a smile.

 

“It will be so lovely to have both Mum and Emily and me together for a few days at Christmas, even if Emily and I will still have to work. We’ll have fun when we’re not.”

 

“Couse you will, Hilda love.” Ada agrees.

 

“Well, we might not be a grand country house, Hilda, but we’re going to have ever so much fun right here on New Year’s Eve.” Edith enthuses.

 

“You aren’t going back to the **************Angel in Rotherhithe with Frank like the last two years, then, Edith?” Hilda asks.

 

“Why would they do that, Hilda love,” George asks. “When they can have a better time of it right here?”

 

“Dad’s decided that he wants to have a knees up right here, Hilda, especially since Bert is going to be home on shore leave for both Christmas and New Year this year. Bert is inviting some of his chums from the Demosthenes*************** who are also on shore leave and staying in London.”

 

“I hope his friends aren’t going to be too rough and rowdy.” Ada says with concern as she kneads the dough.

 

“Of course they won’t be, Ada love!” George tuts from his chair. “He’s working in the rarified surrounds of the Demosthenes’ first-class dining saloon, not her boiler room.”

 

“Well, rarified or not, I bet there are plenty of rowdy lads working in the first-class dining saloon, George.” Ada scoffs as she picks up her rolling pin and begins to roll out the lightly dusted ball of leftover dough into another, flat circle.

 

“Well I’m inviting some of my old chums from school,” Edith assures her mother calmly as she starts to ice a biscuit in the shape of a jolly, round snowman. “And that includes Alice Dunn****************, so Bert’s friends will just have to behave, Mum.”

 

“See, Ada love,” George opines. “Invite the Vicar’s daughter, and they’ll be sure to behave.”

 

“Pshaw!” Ada scoffs, flapping her hand, shooing away her husband’s remark flippantly. “With a bottle of champagne promised to Edith by Miss Chetwynd as a New year gift,” She stops rolling out the dough, turns and looks at her husband with a cocked eyebrow and a doubtful look. “I hardly think so.”

 

“Well, we’ll only be a few footsteps away, up in the front parlour with Mr. and Mrs. Pyecroft, Ada love, so I doubt there will be too many shenanigans going on.”

 

“I should hope not!” Ada goes back to rolling out the dough. “Shenanigans indeed!”

 

“It’s going to be so much fun!” Edith says. “I do wish you could come!”

 

“It’ll be more fun if Frank comes through with that gramophone he keeps promising.” George says.

 

“Oh, you know Frank, Dad.” Edith defends her beau steadfastly. “If he says he’ll do something, he does it.”

 

“That he does, Edith love.” her father agrees.

 

“A gramophone, Edith?” Hilda gasps. “How ripping!”

 

“Yes. Frank says he knows someone from the trades union with a gramophone. His friend will be away over Christmas, so he said that Frank could borrow it for New Year’s Eve. Apparently he had all the latest records.”

 

“That will make your New Year’s Eve, Edith! Do you remember that day we went down Oxford Street and went into His Master’s Voice***************** and you convinced me to come inside with you, so we could enjoy the elicit delight of listening to records we were never going to buy?”

 

“Faint heart never won fair lady, Hilda.” Edith giggles.

 

“That’s right!” Hilda exclaims. “That’s what you told me before you dragged me in there.”

 

“I hardly dragged you, Hilda.” Edith retorts. “You wanted to listen to Paul Whiteman.”

 

“And I did!” Hilda giggles with delight.

 

“Perhaps it’s more Edith and her girlfriends we need to worry about rather than Bert and his shipmates on New Year’s Eve, Ada love.” George ventures with a conspiratorial smile and a wink at his daughter.

 

*’Claude Duval’ is a 1924 British silent adventure film directed by George A. Cooper and starring Nigel Barrie, Fay Compton and Hugh Miller. It is based on the historical story of Claude Duval, the French highwayman in Restoration England who worked in the service of exiled royalists who returned to England under King Charles II.

 

**The Willesden Empire Hippodrome Theatre was confusingly located in Harlesden, although it was not too far from Willesden Junction Railway Station in this west London inner city district. It was opened by Walter Gibbons as a music hall/variety theatre in September 1907. In 1908, the name was shortened to Willesden Hippodrome Theatre. Designed by noted theatre architect Frank Matcham, seating was provided for 864 in the orchestra stalls and pit, 517 in the circle and 602 in the gallery. It had a forty feet wide proscenium, a thirty feet deep stage and eight dressing rooms. It was taken over by Sydney Bernstein’s Granada Theatres Ltd. chain from the third of September 1927 and after some reconstruction was re-opened on the twelfth of September 1927 with a programme policy of cine/variety. From March 1928 it was managed by the Denman/Gaumont group, but was not successful and went back to live theatre use from 28th January 1929. It was closed in May 1930, and was taken over by Associated British Cinemas in August 1930. Now running films only, it operated as a cinema until September 1938. It then re-opened as a music hall/variety theatre, with films shown on Sundays, when live performances were prohibited. The Willesden Hippodrome Theatre was destroyed by German bombs in August/September 1940. The remains of the building stood on the High Street for many years, becoming an unofficial playground for local children, who trespassed onto the property. The remains were demolished in 1957.

 

***The Daily Express is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. It was first published as a broadsheet in London in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918. Under the ownership of Lord Beaverbrook, the Express rose to become the newspaper with the largest circulation in the world, going from two million in the 1930s to four million in the 1940s.

 

****The Sundy Express became the first newspaper to publish a crossword in November 1924.

 

*****An argyle pattern features overlapping diamonds with intersecting diagonal lines on top of the diamonds. They are traditionally knit, not woven, using an intarsia technique. The pattern was named after the Seventeenth Century tartan of Clan Campbell of Argyll in western Scotland.

 

******Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at theVulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

*******Two-up two-down is a type of small house with two rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs. There are many types of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, and these are among the most modest. The first two-up two-down terraces were built in the 1870s, but the concept of them made up the backbone of the Metroland suburban expansions of the 1920s with streets lined with rows of two-up two-down semi-detached houses in Mock Tudor, Jacobethan, Arts and Crafts and inter-war Art Deco styles bastardised from the aesthetic styles created by the likes of English Arts and Crafts Movement designers like William Morris and Charles Voysey.

 

********A skillion roof, sometimes called a shed or lean-to roof, is distinguished by a single, sloping plane extending from one side of the house to the other.

 

*********Charades is a word guessing game where one player has to act out a word or action without speaking and other players have to guess what the action is. It's a fun game that's popular around the world at parties, and was traditionally a game often played on Christmas Day after luncheon or dinner by people of all classes.

 

**********The word “rum” can sometimes be used as an alternative to odd or peculiar, such as: “it's a rum business, certainly”.

 

***********The servants’ ball has had a long tradition in the country house estates of Britain and only really died out with the onset of the Second World War. They were a cultural melting pot where popular music of the day would be performed alongside traditional country dance tunes. Throughout the Nineteenth Century and into the Twentieth, these balls were commonplace in large country homes.

 

************Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve depending upon the tradition) is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either the fifth of January or the sixth of January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas Day or the twenty-sixth of December. January the sixth is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, which begins the Epiphanytide season.

 

*************It may be built up and suburban today, but Harlesden was just a few big houses and farms until 1840 when the railway was built. Irish immigrants escaping famine in the 1840s came to Harlesden to build canals and railways. Harlesden grew slowly, but by the 1870s and 1880s, when Ada would have been a girl, streets of small houses for railway workers, laundries and bakeries started to appear and the area slowly transformed from rural to suburban. The land around Harlesden Green, for the most part, was owned by the College of All Souls, Oxford, which was later to give its name to the Harlesden Parish Church.

 

**************The Angel, one of the oldest Rotherhithe pubs, is now in splendid isolation in front of the remains of Edward III's mansion on the Thames Path at the western edge of Rotherhithe. The site was first used when the Bermondsey Abbey monks used to brew beer which they sold to pilgrims. It is located at 24 Rotherhithe St, opposite Execution Dock in Wapping. It has two storeys, plus an attic. It is built of multi-coloured stock brick with a stucco cornice and blocking course. The ground floor frontage is made of wood. There is an area of segmental arches on the first floor with sash windows, and it is topped by a low pitched slate roof. Its Thames frontage has an unusual weatherboarded gallery on wooden posts. The interior is divided by wooden panels into five small rooms. In the early Twentieth Century its reputation and location attracted local artists including Augustus John and James Abbott McNeil Whistler. In the 1940s and 50s it became a popular destination for celebrities including Laurel and Hardy. Today its customers are local residents, tourists and people walking the Thames Path.

 

***************The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.

 

****************The vicar of All Souls Parish Church in Harlesden between 1918 and 1927 was Ernest Arnold Dunn. Whilst I cannot find any details about his family life, I’d like to think that he was a happily married man of god and could well have had a daughter named Alice who no doubt played the organ in church on Sundays.

 

*****************The Gramophone Company, who used the brand of Nipper the dog listening to a gramophone, opened the first His Master’s Voice (HMV) shop in London’s busy shopping precinct at 363 Oxford Street in Mayfair on the 20th of July 1921. The master of ceremonies was British composer Sir Edward Elgar. The shop still remains in the possession of more recently financially embattled HMV and it is colloquially known as the ‘home of music since 1921’

 

This cheerful festive domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Central to our story are the delicious looking plate of iced and decorated Christmas biscuits, which is a miniature artisan piece gifted to me by my dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/), who surprised me with it last Christmas. The silver miniature biscuit cutters, all of which have handles and raised edges, just like their life-sized counterpart, are also from her. I have been anxious to use these in a scene, but of course being festively themed, they have had to wait until now.

 

The flour and dough covered wooden board with its flour dusted rolling pin is also an artisan miniature which I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. Aged on purpose, the rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters for flour and sugar, made in typical domestic Art Deco design and painted in the popular kitchen colours of the 1920s are artisan pieces I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. The glass jar of sugar with its cork stopper and the silver spoon sticking out of the flour cannister also come from there.

 

The two bowls of icing you can just see to the left and right of the photo are also 1:12 artisan miniatures that I acquired from former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her food looks so real! Frances Knight’s work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

Ada’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan pieces.

 

Ada’s worn kitchen table I have had since I was a child of seven or eight.

The Colonial Era Farmhouse home of Erin of Revealing Redesign - who did all of the decorating and remodeling.

 

© Laura Kicey for Philadelphia Magazine - Property Blog

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 are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. Whilst far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, the Harlesden terrace has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith and her brother, Bert.

 

Whilst Edith made a wonderful impression when she met Mrs. McTavish, her young beau Frank Leadbetter’s grandmother, less can be said for Frank who whilst pleasing George, rubbed Ada the wrong way at the Sunday roast lunch Edith organised with her parents to meet Frank. Ever since then, Frank has been filled with remorse for speaking his mind a little more freely than he ought to have in front of Edith’s mother. Finally, Edith hit upon a possible solution to their problem, which is to introduce Mrs. McTavish to George and Ada. Being a kind old lady who makes lace, Edith and Frank both hope that Mrs. McTavish will be able to impress upon Ada what a nice young man Frank is, in spite of his more forward-thinking ideas, which jar with Ada’s ways of thinking, and assure her how happy he makes Edith. After careful planning, today is the day that George and Ada will meet Mrs. McTavish, over a Sunday lunch served in the Watsford’s kitchen.

 

The kitchen has always been the heart of Edith’s family home, and today it has an especially comfortable and welcoming feeling about it, just as Edith had hoped for. Ada has once again pulled out one of her best tablecloths which now adorns the round kitchen table, hiding its worn surface and the best blue and white china and gilded dinner service is being used today. At Edith’s request, because Mrs. McTavish’s teeth are too brittle to manage a roast chicken for lunch, Ada has cooked a rich and flavoursome beef stew to which she has added some of her large suet dumplings: a suitably delicious meal that is soft enough for the old Scottish lady to consume even with her weak teeth. Now the main course is over, and everyone has had their fill.

 

“Well, I hope you have all had sufficient to eat.” Ada announces, pushing her Windsor chair back across the flagstones and standing up from at her white linen draped kitchen table.

 

“Och!” exclaims Mrs. McTavish. “I’ve had plenty, thank you Mrs. Watsford.” She rubs her belly contentedly. “Thank you for cooking something I could manage with my old teeth.”

 

“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada says with a warm smile. “My family enjoy my hearty beef stews, so it was no hardship to serve it.”

 

“Well your suet dumplings are lovely and soft, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman croons in her rolling brogue. “If you’d be willing to share the recipe, I’d like to try and make them for myself at home.”

 

“Yes, of course, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada enthuses, pleased to be able to share one of her many wonderful recipes, as she has done over the years with her daughter as she has grown up.

 

“That was a fine Sunday tea, Ada.” acknowledges her husband as he tops up his and Frank’s glasses with stout from the glazed brown pottery jug on the table.

 

“Why thank you, love.” Ada replies, blushing at the compliment as she runs her clammy hands down the front of her dress, a small outward display of nervousness known only to her family.

 

“Possibly one of your best yet, love.” George adds in an assuring fashion, noticing his wife’s action and recognising its symbolism.

 

“Yes, thank you Mrs. Watsford,” agrees Frank politely. “It was a delicious lunch, and more than enough for me. Thanks ever so!”

 

“Oh I hope you’ll have room for some of my cherry pie, Frank,” Ada says. “Edith told me you liked it so much the first time you had it here, that I made it for you again.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure I can squeeze in a slice, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank assures her.

 

“Thank you Mum.” smiles Edith up at her mother.

 

Edith is so grateful to her mother for all her efforts for the day. Not only was Ada easily convinced of the idea of meeting Frank’s grandmother, Mrs. McTavish, but that she readily agreed to hosting a Sunday lunch for her and produced a fine repast. Edith had helped her mother polish the silver cutlery on her Wednesday off, so it was sparkling as it sat alongside Ada’s best plates and glasses. To top it all off, Frank has bought a bunch of beautifully bright flowers on route from collecting his grandmother from her home in Upton Park to the Watsford’s home in Harlesden. Now they stood in the middle of the table in a glass bottle that serves as a good vase, a perfect centrepiece for Ada’s Sunday best table setting.

 

“Well!” Ada remarks in reply to her company’s satisfied commentary, picking up the now warm enough to touch deep pottery dish containing what little remains of her stew. “I think we might let tea settle down first and then we’ll have some pudding. What do you all say?”

 

Everyone readily agrees.

 

“Alright gentleman,” Ada addresses her husband and Frank, seated next to one another. “You have enough time for a smoke then, before I serve cherry pie. I’ll just pop it in the oven to warm.”

 

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. Watsford, but I don’t smoke.” Frank quickly explains.

 

“Ahh, but I do, Frank my lad.” pipes up George. He stands up and walks behind his wife and reaches up to the high shelf running along the top of the kitchen range and fetches down a small tin of tobacco and a pipe. “Come on, let’s you and I step out into the courtyard for a chat, man-to-man.”

 

“Dad!” Edith exclaims, looking aghast at her father. “Don’t!”

 

“Don’t worry Edith love, I don’t need to ask young Frank here’s intentions.” George chortles, his eyes glittering mischievously beneath his bushy eyebrows. “It’s quite clear he’s mad about you.”

 

“Dad!” Edith gasps again as both she and Frank blush deeply.

 

“That he is,” Mrs. McTavish agrees, reaching across to her grandson and pinching his left cheek as he sinks his head down in embarrassment. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, my bonny bairn: no mistake.” She smiles indulgently. “Get along with you now Francis!”

 

“Oh Gran!” murmurs Frank self-consciously. “How many timed must I say, I’m Frank now, not Francis.”

 

“Och! Nonsense!” the old Scottish woman says sharply, slapping her grandson’s forearm lightly. “You’ll always be Francis to me, my little bairn!”

 

“Come on Frank my lad,” George encourages the younger man, patting him gently on the back in a friendly way. He picks up his glass of stout. “Let’s leave our womenfolk to chat, and they call you what they like and we’ll be none the wiser for it.”

 

As George, followed by a somewhat reluctant Frank casting doleful looks at Edith, walk out the back door into the rear garden, Ada says, “Edith love, would you mind clearing the table, whilst I set the table for pudding.”

 

“Yes of course, Mum!” Edith replies, leaping into action by pushing back her ladderback chair.

 

“I’m pleased to see you make your husband go outside to smoke, Mrs. Watsford.” the old Scottish woman remarks with a satisfied smile. “I don’t approve of men smoking indoors.” she adds crisply.

 

“No, something told me that I didn’t think you would, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada replies with a bemused smile, not admitting that George usually smokes his pipe in the kitchen after every meal. She and her husband had agreed the night before as they both sat by the kitchen range warming their feet, Ada darning one of George’s socks and George puffing on his pipe pleasantly, that perhaps to give the very best first impression, George should smoke outside in the back garden whilst Mrs. McTavish was visiting.

 

“ ’Nyree’, my husband used to say to me. ‘Nyree, why don’t you let me smoke indoors like other wives let their husbands do?’ I’d always say that Mither* never let Faither** smoke his pipe in the house, so why should I let him?” She nods emphatically.

 

“Nyree,” Ada remarks, turning around from the oven where she has just put her cherry pie, stacked with ripe, juicy berries to warm. “That’s a pretty Scottish name.”

 

“Och,” chuckles Mrs. McTavish. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Watsford, but it’s quite literally as far removed from Scottish as you can get.”

 

“Where does it come from then, Mrs. McTavish?” Ada puts her hands on her hips. “It sounds so lovely.”

 

“Well, my family were fishing people going back many generations, and Faither was a seaman, and he sailed to places far further than the Hebrides*** that took him from home for months at a time when I was a wee bairn. Just before I was born, he came back from what was then the newly formed Colony of New Zealand****. He met some of the local islanders who were struck by his blonde hair. Apparently, they were all dark skinned and had dark hair, so they found him rather fascinating to look at.” She chuckles. “The story he told me years later was that they called him ‘Ngaire’, which he was told by some of his shipmates, who knew more about the natives of the colony, on the return voyage that it meant ‘flaxen’. Some of them told him that they named their own blonde daughters Nyree after the name ‘Ngaire’. So, when I was born, I had blonde hair, if you can believe that now.” She gently pats her carefully set white hair that sweeps out from underneath her old fashioned lace embroidered cap in the style of her youth. “So Faither told Mither that I should be called Nyree. So, Nyree I was.”

 

“What a lovely story, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith remarks, gathering the lunch plates together.

 

“Thank you, Edith dearie. Now, what can I do to help, besides telling old stories?” asks Mrs. McTavish with a groan as she leans her wrists on the edge of the table and starts to push herself somewhat awkwardly out of her chair.

 

“You don’t have to do anything, Mrs. McTavish,” Ada assures her, encouraging the older Scottish woman to resume her seat with a settling gesture. “You are our guest. Edith and I are very used to working together around this old kitchen of ours, aren’t we love?”

 

“Yes Mum.” Edith agrees, gathering up the dinner plates into a stack, scraping any remnants of stew and dumplings onto the top plate using the cutlery as she gathers it.

 

“You’re a good lass, dearie, helping your mam like that.” Mrs. McTavish opines as she settles back comfortably into the well-worn chair usually sat in by George and Ada’s son, Bert.

 

“Oh not really, Mrs. McTavish.” Edith replies dismissively. “Any daughter would help her mum.”

 

“Och, not just any lass, bairn. There are plenty I know of, up round my way, especially those who are domestics like you, who won’t lift a finger unless they have to on their days off. Slovenly creatures!”

 

“Well, I agree with you, Mrs. McTavish. I think that’s very lazy of them, not to mention thoughtless. We all ought to do our bit. Mum made a lovely lunch for us, so it’s only right that I should help tidy up. I’ll help wash the dishes properly later, Mum,” Edith addresses her mother. “I’ll just rinse them and stack them by sink for now.”

 

“Thanks Edith love.” Ada replies gratefully. As she puts out some of her best blue and white floral china cups she addresses Mrs. McTavish. “Yes, Edith’s a good girl, even if she does use fancy words now.” She glances at her daughter. “Lunch rather than tea.” She shakes her head but smiles lovingly. “What next I ask you?” she snorts derisively.

 

“Mum!” Edith utters with an exasperated sigh but is then silenced by her mother’s raised careworn hand.

 

“And her dad and I are very proud of her, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“Now, thinking of Edith and being proud of your bairns,” Mrs. McTavish starts. “When Edith and Francis came to visit me at Upton Park the other week to suggest this lovely gathering of our two clans, such as they are,” She clears her throat with a growl and speaks a little louder and more strongly. “They told me, Mrs. Watsford, that you and your husband were a bit concerned about some of Francis’ more,” She pauses whilst she tries to think of the right word to use. “Radical, ideas.”

 

“Mrs. McTavish!” Edith exclaims, spinning around from the trough where she is rinsing the dishes, her eyes wide with fear as to what the old Scottish woman is about to say.

 

“Now, now, my lass!” The old Scottish woman holds up her gnarled hands with their elongated fingers in defence before reaching about herself and adjusting the beautiful lace shawl draped over her shoulders that she made herself when she was younger. “I won’t have any secrets between your mam and me if we’re to be friends, which I do hope we will be.” She turns in her seat and addresses Ada as the younger woman puts out the glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid that Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Markets*****. “When your Edith and my Francis came to visit me at home, and broached the subject of me coming here for tea, they suggested that I might be a calming voice that would soothe your disquiet about my Francis and his more unusual ideas.”

 

“Did they indeed?” Ada asks with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow, looking at her daughter’s back as she stands at the trough, dutifully rinsing dishes with such diligence that she doesn’t have to turn around and face her mother.

 

“Now, don’t be cross with them, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish reaches out her left hand and grasps Ada’s right in it, starting the younger woman as much by the intimate gesture she wasn’t expecting as by how cold the older woman’s hand is. “You mustn’t blame them.” She turns and looks with affection at Edith’s back. “They are young, and in love after all. When your bràmair***** is perceived less than favourably by the other’s mam or da, you can hardly blame them for wanting to smooth the waves of concern, can you?”

 

“Well, I don’t know if I approve of them telling you what my feelings are about your grandson behind my back.” Ada folds her arms akimbo.

 

“Ahh, now Mrs. Watsford,” Mrs. McTavish says soothingly. “You were young and in love once too. Don’t deny it!” She wags her finger at Ada. “I believe you met Mr. Watsford at a parish picnic.”

 

“Yes, we both worship at All Souls****** and met at a picnic in Roundwood Park*******.” Ada smiles fondly at the memory of her in her flouncy Sunday best dress and George in a smart suit and derby sitting on the lush green lawns of the park.

 

“And no doubt if your mam or da was set against Mr. Watsford, you would have done anything to convince them otherwise.” Mrs. McTavish continues.

 

“Well, I didn’t have to. George was, and still is, a model of a husband.” Ada counters quickly.

 

“That may well be true, Mrs. Watsford, and I’m happy for you.” The old Scotswoman pauses. “But you would have, if he had been less that the perfect specimen of husband that he is.” She cocks a white eyebrow as she looks earnestly at Edith’s mother.

 

“Yes, I suppose I would have, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada concedes with a sigh.

 

“So, I have come today to plead my grandson’s case with you.” Mrs. McTavish announces plainly.

 

“I’d hardly call your son’s attitudes a case that requires pleading before me, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada scoffs in surprise at the old woman’s words.

 

“Well, you’ll forgive me for seeing things from a different perspective, Mrs. Watsford.” the Scotswoman elucidates. “For you see, from where I am sitting, it seems to me that Mr. Watsford quite likes Francis. They both have a common enjoyment of reading books, even if my Francis likes reading more serious books than the murder mysteries your husband prefers. You on the other hand are judge and jury, sitting in judgement of my Francis’ ideas because they are at odds to your own.”

 

“I think I see where he gets some of his outspokenness, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada remarks before turning away from her guest at picking up a blue and white floral milk jug from the great Welsh dresser behind her.

 

“Aye. I’ll not deny it, Mrs. Watsford. His parents, my husband and I all taught Francis to speak his mind and not be afraid to do so. I suppose we all come across a little bit abrasively as a clan to some, but we all have,” She pauses and smiles sadly. “Or rather, had, quite strong personalities and opinions about things. We all believed in free speech, so long as it is respectful. Now, Francis’ faither was the one who really encouraged him to look beyond his place in life though. He was a costermonger******** down in Covent Garden, but he always wanted to provide a better life for his wife and son. If ever he was sick, just like if his wife, my daughter, Mairi,” she clarifies. “Or I were sick, we couldn’t earn a shilling. I taught Mairi to sew lace like me, but all we ever got was piecemeal work, and it’s still the same for me today. Anyway, Francis’ faither taught his son to look for more stable work with someone else and then to save his pennies and perhaps one day own his own shop, rather than be a costermonger with a cart on the streets like him. And that is why Francis is always looking to improve himself. He’s looking for an opportunity to provide a good and steady income and a good life for your Edith.”

 

Edith turns back from rinsing the dishes and holding her breath watches the two other women in the kitchen: Mrs. McTavish, pale and wrinkled wrapped up in a froth of handmade lace and her mother standing over her, a thoughtful look on her face as she listens.

 

“Well,” Ada remarks after a few moments of deliberation. “I do find your grandson’s desire to improve himself admirable, even if my own aspirations don’t stretch to such lofty heights as his own. George and I are quite comfortable and happy with our lot.”

 

“But…” Mrs. McTavish prompts.

 

“But I find some of his ideas… disconcerting.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“Such as his talking of our class being on their way up, and the upper classes coming down. Forgive me for saying it, Mrs. McTavish, but he does sound a little bit like one of those revolutionaries that we read about in the newspapers who overthrew the king of Russia back in 1918.”

 

“Och!” chortles the old Scotswoman. “My Francis is no revolutionary, I assure you. He may have his opinion, but he’s not a radical and angry young man who feels badly done by, by his social betters. He may lack some refinement when explaining what he believes, especially when he is excited and passionate about something, which he usually is.” She sighs. “But he just wants things to be bit better for him and your Edith, and for their bairns if God chooses to bless them with wee little ones.” She looks earnestly at Ada again. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want the same thing for your bairns, Mrs. Watsford, when you were younger and full of dreams?”

 

“Well of course George and I want the very best for Edith and Bert.” Ada admits. “I just have a different way of explaining it, and going about it, Mrs. McTavish.”

 

“These are different times, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish says matter-of-factly. “The world has just gone through the most terrible war we have ever known. Those who are left and didn’t pay the ultimate sacrifice expect, no deserve, better for fighting for King and country. We cannot deny them that wish, nor condemn them for having it. They deserve a better world in which to live, surely? If not, why did they fight?”

 

“Well, I cannot deny that.” Ada admits with a sniff. “All those poor young men we sent off, bright faced and excited, never to return.”

 

“Well then.” smiles Mrs. McTavish. “Although my grandson was too young to enlist, he, like you, Edith and I, is a survivor of the war on the home front, and it shaped our lives. Who can blame Francis for not wanting better in the aftermath of war?” She looks into Ada’s thought filled face. “Tell me, Mrs. Watsford. Do you think Edith has good sense?”

 

“Of course I do, Mrs. McTavish.” Ada retorts. “My Edith has a good head on her shoulders.”

 

“I’m glad you think so, Mrs. Watsford.” Mrs. McTavish replies. She turns her attentions to Edith, who still stands silently, leaning against the trough sink observing the interaction between her mother and Frank’s grandmother. “What do you think, Edith dearie?”

 

“Me?” Edith asks.

 

“Yes, you.” Mrs. McTavish says strongly. “Don’t you want and strive for more? Don’t you want a better life for you and my grandson?”

 

“Oh yes, Mrs. McTavish. I worked hard to get the position with Miss Lettice. She’s a much nicer mistress than wither old Widow Hounslow or Mrs. Plaistow were. I get better pay, and better working conditions. I think Frank is right. There are more possibilities in the world now, although we do have to work hard for them.”

 

“Well said, Edith dearie.” Mrs. McTavish agrees, turning back to Ada. “So you see Mrs. Watsford. I think that your Edith and my Francis are well matched. They both want a better life for themselves. They’ll do better working together than making valiant efforts separately. Francis may be a little headstrong sometimes, but Edith will keep him grounded.”

 

Ada remains silent, deep in thought at her companion’s argument.

 

“Well, have a pleaded my grandson’s case, Mrs. Watsford?” the old Scottish woman asks.

 

Just then, the kitchen door opens and George and Frank walk noisily back into the kitchen, chuckling amiably over a shared joke, comfortable in one another’s company.

 

“I say Ada!” George exclaims. “That cherry pie of yours smells delicious, love. Is it about ready for eating, do you suppose?”

 

“Yes, I think it’s just about ready.” Ada agrees. “Edith love, will you fetch the jug of cream from the pantry for me, please?”

 

“Yes Mum!” Edith replies as she goes to the narrow pantry door and peers inside for her mother’s garland trimmed jug.

 

“So, who is going to have the biggest slice of my cherry pie?” Ada asks as she places the pie on the table amidst her best china.

 

“I think that right goes to me, as head of the Watsford household.” pipes up George with confidence.

 

“I say, Mr. Watsford,” retorts Frank. “That isn’t very fair. Just because you’re head of the house, doesn’t mean you are automatically entitled to the biggest share of the pie.”

 

“That’s a rather radical thought, young Frank.” laughs George good-naturedly. “I’m not sure if I approve of it, though.”

 

“Who should get the biggest slice then, my bairn?” his grandmother asks.

 

“Oh you know my answer, Gran.” Frank replies. “I shouldn’t need to tell you.”

 

“Yes, but tell the others, dearie. They don’t know you quite as well as I. State your case as to who should get the biggest portion.”

 

“Yes,” encourages Ada. “Tell us, Frank. Who do you think should get the biggest slice of the pie?”

 

Frank looks at Ada as she stands, poised with the kitchen knife in her hand, ready to cut through the magnificent cherry pie full of ripe and colourful berries, edged with a golden crust of pastry. “Why you of course, Mrs. Watsford.” he says matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who made it for all of us. You deserve the biggest share for all your hard work.”

 

Ada considers the bright eyed young man sitting at her table. “I like your thinking, Frank.” she says at length with a smile as she cuts into the steaming pie before her.

 

*Mither is an old fashioned Scottish word for mother.

 

**Faither is an old fashioned Scottish word for father.

 

***The Hebrides is an archipelago comprising hundreds of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. Divided into the Inner and Outer Hebrides groups, they are home to rugged landscapes, fishing villages and remote Gaelic-speaking communities.

 

****What we know today as New Zealand was once the Colony of New Zealand. It was a Crown colony of the British Empire that encompassed the islands of New Zealand from 1841 to 1907. The power of the British Government was vested in the governor of New Zealand. The colony had three successive capitals: Okiato (or Old Russell) in 1841; Auckland from 1841 to 1865; and Wellington, which became the capital during the colony's reorganisation into a Dominion, and continues as the capital of New Zealand today. During the early years of British settlement, the governor had wide-ranging powers. The colony was granted self-government with the passage of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. The first parliament was elected in 1853, and responsible government was established in 1856. The governor was required to act on the advice of his ministers, who were responsible to the parliament. In 1907, the colony became the Dominion of New Zealand, which heralded a more explicit recognition of self-government within the British Empire.

 

*****The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

*****Bràmair in Gaelic is commonly used as a term for girlfriend, boyfriend or sweetheart.

 

******The parish of All Souls, Harlesden, was formed in 1875 from Willesden, Acton, St John's, Kensal Green, and Hammersmith. Mission services had been held by the curate of St Mary's, Willesden, at Harlesden institute from 1858. The parish church at Station Road, Harlesden, was built and consecrated in 1879. The town centre church is a remarkable brick octagon designed by E.J. Tarver. Originally there was a nave which was extended in 1890 but demolished in 1970.

 

*******Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at theVulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.

 

********A costermonger is a person who traditionally sells fruit and vegetables outside from a cart rather than in a shop.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On the table the is a cherry tart 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 blue and white crockery on the table I have bought as individual from several online sellers on E-Bay. I imagine that whole sets were once sold, but now I can only find them piecemeal. The cutlery I bought as a teenager from a high street dollhouse suppliers. The pottery ale jug comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in England. The glass of ale comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The cottage ware teapot in the foreground was made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics. The vase of flowers came from a 1:12 miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The tablecloth is actually a piece of an old worn sheet that was destined for the dustbin.

 

In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and a jar of S.P.C. peaches. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, except the jar of S.P.C. peaches which comes from Shepherds Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All of them have great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.

 

Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.

 

P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.

 

The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.

 

Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.

 

S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).

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Shot for an interior designer. So many great patterns, textures and art in this home! I love how the portrait of the homeowner's Dad in the foyer sort of mimics the zen-y Buddha below. A little AD200 bounced off ceiling to the left of Dad's portrait (at the front door). A little more AD200 bounced off the big window CL, but mostly a handful of ambient frames. I was really trying to highlight the textures here (ottoman, carpet, chairs, etc...). If someone tells me the foreground is too dark (especially the hydrangeas CL), I wouldn't put up much of an argument, but I'm probably keeping it that way. That being said, I appreciate all feedback and c.c. Thanks!

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 are not in Lettice’s flat, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. We have come to the home of Lettice’s charwoman*, Mrs. Boothby, where we find ourselves in the cheerful kitchen cum living room of her tenement in Merrybrook Place: by her own admission, a haven of cleanliness amidst the squalor of the surrounding neighbourhood. Edith, Lettice’s maid, is visiting her Cockney friend and co-worker on a rather impromptu visit, much to the surprise of the old char when she answered the timid knock on her door on a Saturday morning and found Edith standing on her stoop, out of breath, visibly distressed and awash with tears. The old woman quickly ushered her young friend inside with a protective arm wrapped around her, peering over her shoulder with a steely gaze as she observed the number of neighbours taking an unwelcome interest in the rather well dressed stranger at her door. “Youse right gawking there, Golda Friedmann?” she called out angrily to one of her neighbours, a Jewish busybody who lives at the end of her rookery**, causing the woman wrapped in the bright paisley shawl to turn away in shame at having been caught out staring at business that wasn’t her own.

 

Settled at the kitchen table, Mrs. Boothby has divested Edith of her smart black straw cloche decorated with feathers and satin roses and her three-quarter length black coat, and seated her comfortably in a chair by the warm old fashioned blacklead stove whilst she busies herself about her simple, yet clean, kitchen. She puts out a gilt edged blue and white cake plate on the surface of her scrubbed deal pine kitchen table, on which she carefully arranges a selection of biscuits from her pretty biscuit tin decorated with Art Nouveau ladies. The plate sits between two dainty blue floral tea cups, a sugar bowl and milk jug, whilst a Brown Betty*** sits to the side, steam snaking from her spout.

 

“Nah Edith dearie,” Mrs. Boothby says with concern, sinking with a groan down into her ladderback chair adjunct to Edith. “What’s all the commotion then?” She looks the young maid squarely in the face, a kindly look on her worn and wrinkled face. “Tell me why youse come to see me outta the blue like this on a Staurday? Are you alright? Is it something to do wiv your young Frank Leadbetter then? ‘As ‘e wound up in some trouble or other wiv them Bolshevik types ‘e ‘angs around wiv?”

 

“Oh it isn’t me, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith replies in an upset fashion as she tries to catch her breath. “Nor Frank. He’s fine. We’re fine.” Her breath rasps as her breathing slowly starts to settle down. “It’s Miss Lettice!”

 

“Miss Lettice?”

 

“Yes, Mrs. Boothby. It’s really quite distressing.” Edith pulls out a little embroidered handkerchief from the sleeve of her lace trimmed blouse and sniffs as she dabs her eyes with it with a shaky hand.

 

“Nah, nah!” the old Cockney char says. “Youse not makin’ no sense, Edith dearie. What’s ‘appened to Miss Lettice? She been in an accident or somefink?”

 

“No, Mrs. Boothby. Well yes… Well no, not that kind of accident.”

 

“Youse confusin’ me, dearie. Let’s get you a nice cup of Rosie-Lee**** and then youse can start from the beginnin’.” Mrs. Boothby lifts up the well worn Brown Betty pot and pours a slug of brackish, well steeped tea into Edith’s dainty floral cup, before adding some to her own. “I’ll let ya add your own milk ‘n sugar, dearie.” She pauses for a moment and looks across at Edith with worry in her eyes. “Although considerin’ the state yer in, I fink a couple of sugars might be in order.”

 

“You may well be right, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies with a sigh, picking up the elegant Regency blue and white sugar bowl, adding two heaped spoonsful of sugar to her tea and stirring it vigorously.

 

“That’s it, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly. “Nah, ‘ere’s the milk.” She passes her a jug decorated with blue grapes and accepts the sugar bowl in return.

 

Whilst Edith adds milk to her tea, Mrs, Boothby adds two heaped spoons of sugar to her own from the sugar bowl, not to offset any shock, but simply because she has a sweet tooth.

 

“’Elp yerself to some biscuits, Edith dearie.” Mrs. Boothby indicates with a nod to the selection she put out on the cake plate. “I’ve plenty more in ‘ere.” She taps the biscuit tin at her left with her gnarled and careworn hand with its bulbous knuckles. “Bad news is always betta on a full stomach, I find.”

 

“Oh I couldn’t right now, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith assures her hostess. “But perhaps in a little bit, once I’ve caught my breath and had some tea.” She lifts the cup to her mouth and gingerly takes a sip of the sweet strong tea, sighing contentedly as the hot liquid reaches her tongue and the flavour hits her tastebuds

 

“As you like, Edith dearie. Nah, I ‘ope ya don’t mind, but I’m dying for a fag! I was just about ta ‘ave one when you arrived.” Without waiting for a reply, Mrs Boothby starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag sitting on the table before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she lights it with a satisfied sigh and one of her fruity coughs, dropping the match into a black ashtray full of used cigarette butts that also sits on the table. Mrs. Boothby settles back comfortably in her ladderback chair with her cigarette in one hand and reaches out, snatching up a chocolate biscuit with the other. Blowing out a plume of blue smoke that tumbles through the air around them, the old woman continues. “Nah, what’s ‘appened to our Miss Lettice then, that’s got you in such a state, Edith dearie. Start at the beginnin’, nice and slow like, so I can keep up.”

 

“Well, it all started last night when Miss Lettice went out to the Savoy***** to have a celebratory birthday dinner with Mr. Spencely.”

 

“That’s Miss Lettice’s fancy man, ain’t it?” Mrs. Boothby asks, blowing out a plume of curling acrid grey smoke.

 

“Yes, he’s a duke, or rather going to be a duke someday.” Edith takes another, slightly deeper sip of tea. “I helped Miss Lettice pick a beautiful frock for the evening. She was so nervous about everything being just perfect for Mr. Spencely’s birthday that she couldn’t decide for herself and wanted my opinion. With my help she settled upon a nice green georgette frock with gold beaded panels over the skirt. Wrapped up in one of her furs, with Mr. Spencely’s present nicely wrapped under her arm, I bundled her into the taxi I had hailed from the stand down on the square and then with Miss Lettice gone, I settled down to a pleasurably quiet evening on my own in with my latest copy of Photoplay******.”

 

“And then what ‘appened?” Mrs. Boothby asks, chewing loudly through a large mouthful of biscuit.

 

“Well, not an hour later as I sat in the kitchen reading about Gloria Swanson’s new film ‘Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife’******, I heard the front door fly open and then slam closed. It gave me such a shock!” She puts her hand to her heart. “I hurried into the hallway, just in time to see Miss Lettice disappearing into her room, still in her gown but without her fur, crying as if her heart were breaking.”

 

“She ‘asn’t broken up wiv ‘er fancy man the duke, ‘as she, dearie?”

 

“Well, here’s the thing, Mrs. Boothby. I followed Miss Lettice into her boudoir, and there she was, pulling out her valise from her dressing room. She was in a terrible state! All her beautiful makeup was running down her face from the tears she was crying. She was muttering and talking to herself in a most distressed state, and she was shaking like a fir tree. I think she must have walked, or more likely run from the Savoy judging by how heavily she was breathing, and looking at the state of her shoes. The toes were all scuffed and marked and the heels are ruined.”

 

“So what ‘appened then, Edith?”

 

“Well, I walked up to her and I grasped her by the shoulders. It was almost as though until that moment, she hadn’t even noticed I was there. She started babbling on to me about how she had to pack to go to home to Wiltshire right away, and how she was going to catch a train from Victoria railway station that very night, although it was hard to make any real sense of what she was saying. She started sentences but didn’t finish them, or started part way through, and she was so breathless that half her words were lost anyway. I tried to calm her and had her sit down on her bed. I offered to pack her valise for her, and whilst I did, I asked her what had happened.”

 

“And?” Mrs. Boothby asks, her cigarette burning down almost to the butt as she holds it half way between her lips and the ashtray as she hangs on every word Edith says.

 

“Well, it turns out that when she got to dinner, Mr. Spencely’s mother, Lady Zinnia was there instead of Mr. Spencely himself!”

 

“No!” Mrs. Boothby takes a long drag on her cigarette, the paper crackling as she does.

 

“Yes,” Edith replies, taking another sip of the restorative tea. “Aand she told Miss Lettice that she had packed Mr. Spencely off to South Africa!”

 

“South Africa?” Mrs. Boothby queries, her question becoming a cloud of grey cigarette smoke, tumbling through the air. “Whyever ‘as she done that then?”

 

“Well, Miss Lettice confided in me that she and Mr. Spencely suspected that Lady Zinnia and Mr. Spencely’s uncle wanted to marry him off to the uncle’s daughter, his cousin who is one of this year’s debutantes, and that neither of them wanted Miss Lettice to be stepping out with Mr. Spencely. In fact, from what I can gather, I don’t think that horrible Lady Zinnia likes Miss Lettice at all, even though she hasn’t seen Miss Lettice since she was a little girl!”

 

“What cheek!” mutters Mrs. Boothby, stamping out her cigarette indignantly into the ashtray as though she were squashing the titled lady herself. “Miss Lettice is a very fine lady: much nicer than some of them uvver muckety-mucks I’s got ta deal wiv up the West End! What business is it of that woman who ‘er son wants to step out wiv?”

 

“Exactly, Mrs. Boothby, but you know how obsessed those old aristocratic families can be about their sons and heirs marrying the right daughters of the right families.”

 

Mrs. Boothby releases another fruity cough in a disgusted response.

 

“Anyway, she told Miss Lettice that she has sent Mr. Spencely away to South Africa for a year, just so she could break them up! Isn’t that frightful?”

 

“Awful!” spits Mrs. Boothby hotly before popping the rest of her biscuit into her mouth.

 

“Miss Lettice isn’t even allowed to write to Mr. Spencely.”

 

“Not at all?” the old Cockney char manages to utter through her mouthful of biscuit, spraying a smattering of biscuit crumbs onto her lap and the floor.

 

“Not even a postcard, Mrs. Boothby, and he isn’t allowed to write to her either, nor talk on that infernal contraption the telephone.”

 

“Does they even ‘ave telephones in them out-of-the-way places like South Africa?” asks Mrs. Boothby.

 

“Oh I’m sure they probably do these days, Mrs. Boothby, after all it is the Twentieth Century, but even so, Miss Lettice isn’t allowed to talk to Mr. Spencely even if they do have them: not for the whole year. Lady Zinnia said that she doesn’t want her son marrying for love.”

 

“’Ow cold ‘earted she must be, not lettin’ ‘er son marry the Miss Lettice if ‘e loves her!”

 

“Lady Zinnia said that if Mr. Spencely comes back from South Africa in a year and he tells her that he still loves Miss Lettice, she will let her and Mr. Spencely get married, but that if he doesn’t, that he’ll agree to marry his cousin the debutante.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yes that’s right!” Edith puts down her cup. “Mr. Spencely will marry the woman that Lady Zinnia and his uncle want him to marry if he doesn’t feel the same about Miss Lettice.” She picks up her cup again and takes another sip. “And a year is such a long time to wait!”

 

“Oh it certainly is, ‘specially if youse can’t even write a letter to one annuva. Oh what an ‘orrible fing for that Lady Zinnia to do! She sounds like a right piece of work, she does!” Mrs. Boothby crosses her bony arms as she sists back in her seat. “I’d like to get my ‘ands on ‘er, so I could wring ‘er neck! Pity she ‘as such a pretty name. My old Dad used ta grow zinnias in a pot by the back door. Lovely fings they was too: all bright and colourful.”

 

“Well Lady Zinnia certainly doesn’t take after her namesake, Mrs. Boothby. She’s horrible! It was awful to see Miss Lettice so upset like that.”

 

“What did you do then, Edith dearie?”

 

“Well, I packed Miss Lettice’s valise for her, made her a nice calming cup of cocoa, and then she took a taxi to Victoria Station. As far as I know, she’s gone home to Wiltshire to nurse her poor broken heart.”

 

“No wonder you was so upset when youse turned up ‘ere unannounced.” Mrs. Boothby says, shaking her head in pity at the young girl.

 

“Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Boothby, but I didn’t know who else to turn to who knows Miss Lettice! I just feel so… so very helpless.”

 

“Nah, nah, dearie,” Mrs. Boothby reaches across the table and gives Edith’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Youse done the best for ‘er, by doin’ what she wants and takin’ good care of ‘er when she can’t do it ‘erself.” She smiles kindly at the young girl across the table from her. “You’re a good girl, Edith, and that’s no mistake.” The old woman settles back in her seat again. “Did she say when she’s comin’ ‘ome?”

 

“Well, she’s gone home, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“Nah! I mean, comin’ ‘ome ta London?”

 

“No, she didn’t say. I suppose she’ll send word when she’s ready. A few days, maybe? A week? I don’t know what else to do, except wait.”

 

“Well, that’s all you can do, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby raises her hands expansively. “It’s all any of us can do. Just wait, and be there when Miss Lettice needs us, just like youse done for ‘er last night.”

 

“Oh I just feel so helpless, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith’s eyes start to well with unshed tears again. “To see her beautiful blue eyes so dull and sad, and surrounded by smeared kohl******* like that was horrible. She was so unhappy, and that made me so sad.”

 

“I know, dearie, but youse just got ta get on wiv fings. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if ‘er old mum dahn the country was tellin’ ‘er the same fing right this very minute.”

 

“I don’t think you know Lady Sadie, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says doubtfully.

 

“I may not, Edith, but I do know mums. I certainly should do, bein’ one meself. And I can tell youse that any mum will tell their broken’earted daughter ta pick ‘erself up and get on wiv life. The sky ain’t fallen in, ‘though it’s cloudy out there today ‘n all. So Miss Lettice will shed a few tears, and then she’ll realise that there is life worth livin’ out there, even wiv a sore and sorry ‘eart.” Mrs. Boothby pauses, withdraws another cigarette paper and rolls herself another cigarette. As she lights it she asks, “Did she say what she were gonna do?”

 

“Who, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Lawd child!” the old char rolls her eyes to the smoke and coal yellowed ceiling above. “Miss Lettice of course! Did she say whevva she was gonna wait for ‘im?”

 

“She did say to me last night that she loves Mr. Spencely, and even though it’s hard, she’d be willing to wait for him.” Edith sips gingerly at her tea as she contemplates the idea of waiting for Frank for a year without any contact between either of them. She quickly banishes the idea as she blinks away tears. “Mind you, a year is such a long time to wait.”

 

“Ahh,” Mrs. Boothby utters as she releases another heavy cough. “You only fink that cos yer a young’n. When youse get a bit older, you’ll come to realise that a year can fly by in the blink of an eye.”

 

Edith eyes the older woman dubiously.

 

“I don’t ‘pect you ta believe me right nah, but one day you’ll wake up and ask yerself where that time’s gone.”

 

“But a whole year and not being allowed to write to one another, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Well, there is that I s’pose, but my Bill were never a writer, an’ when ‘e went off ta sea and I wouldn’t ‘ear from ‘im for months and months, it were always wonderful when ‘e come home again. In fact, it made the time we did ‘ave all the more intense. We ‘ad ta cram the love we ‘ad for one annuver into a smaller space.” The old woman scratches her wiry grey hair. “What’s that old sayin’ about absence and yer ‘eart?”

 

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Edith replies wistfully as she stares into her half empty teacup.

 

“There ya go then!” Mrs. Boothby slams the table, making all the crockery and the tin rattle. “If Miss Lettice really loves ‘er fancy man, an’ ‘e loves ‘er equally, then it’s meant to be, and no amount of time or distance can change that.”

 

“Do you really think so, Mrs. Boothby?”

 

“Course I do. That fancy Lady Zinnia might think she’s bein’ smart ‘n all by splittin’ her son from Miss Lettice, but she may find it might just backfire on ‘er, and serve her bloody right, if you’ll pardon me! I also know that they says that true love conquers all.” She smiles wisely, her dark eyes glinting from amongst her wrinkles in her weathered skin. “So let’s just ‘hope to God that Miss Lettice and ‘er duke really are truly in love.”

 

“Well, I think they are madly in love, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“Good! That’s a start then.” the old cockney woman replies positively. “Nah, best youse dry your eyes again, cos my Ken’ll be ‘ome soon for ‘is tea, an’ ‘ell be beside ‘imself if ‘e sees you blubbin’. ‘E won’t know whevva to punch the lights out of ‘er what made yer upset, or give you a big ‘ug to make you feel better.” She releases another few fruity coughs before taking another deep drag on her cigarette. “’E’s taken a shine to you ever since you gave ‘im those new Beatrix Potter books for Christmas, you know.”

 

*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

**A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.

 

***A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.

 

****Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.

 

*****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.

 

******Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded Motion Picture Story, a magazine also directed at fans. For most of its run, Photoplay was published by Macfadden Publications. In 1921 Photoplay established what is considered the first significant annual movie award. The magazine ceased publication in 1980.

 

*******’Bluebeard's Eighth Wife’ is a 1923 American silent romantic comedy film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Sam Wood and stars Gloria Swanson. The film is based on the French play ‘La huitième femme de Barbe-Bleue’ by Alfred Savoir which is based on the Bluebeard tales of the Fifteenth Century. The play ran on Broadway in 1921 starring Ina Claire in the Swanson role. Mona (Swanson) marries John Brandon and immediately after discovers that she is his eighth wife. Determined that she will not be the eighth to be divorced from him, she sets out on a teaser campaign which proves very effective until Brandon tells her that she is bought and paid for. Furious, she determines to give him grounds for a divorce and is subsequently found in her room with another man. In the end, however, Brandon discovers that she really loves him and they leave for a happy honeymoon.

 

*******Cosmetics in the 1920s were characterized by their use to create a specific look: lips painted in the shape of a Cupid's bow, kohl-rimmed eyes, and bright cheeks brushed with bright red blush. The heavily made-up look of the 1920s was a reaction to the demure, feminine Gibson Girl of the pre-war period. In the 1920s, an international beauty culture was forged, and society increasingly focused on novelty and change. Fashion trends influenced theatre, films, literature, and art. With the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, the fashion of kohl-rimmed eyes like Egyptian pharaohs was very popular in the early 1920s.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of decorative “best” blue and white china on the kitchen table come from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay. The biscuits on the cake plate 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. They actually come in their own 1:12 miniature artisan tin, complete with appropriate labelling. The pretty Alphonse Mucha, Art Nouveau style, biscuit tin came as part of a job lot of miniature bits and pieces at an auction house more than twenty years ago. All the other pieces were too big for my requirements, but I bought the lot just for this tin. The Brown Betty teapot came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length.

 

Also on the table are Mrs. Boothby’s Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.

 

The various bowls, cannisters and dishes and the kettle in the background I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia.

 

The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney.

Located in the heart of Old Town Carmel, the Arts & Design District is home to interior designers, art galleries, showrooms, specialty shops and restaurants.

 

info@carmelartsanddesign.com

ph 317.571.ARTS

30 West Main Street Suite 220

Carmel, Indiana 46032

הציירים הישראלים האמנים הישראליים האומנים העכשוויים היוצרים המודרניים המקוריים החדשניים

 

ראו בקישור מספר ציורים אורגינאלים והדפסים ענקיים שישנם והם למכירה בסטודיו

 

naiveartprints.blogspot.com/2021/11/blog-post.html

   

רפי פרץ

 

סטודיו רחוב התחייה 22 תל אביב

 

טלפון 0525543715

 

אימייל rafi@art4collector.com

     

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.ציורים עיצוב הבית סגנונות עיצובי פנים סגנון מודרני יוקרתי הום סטיילינג מעצבי הפנים העיצוב הישראלי המודרני היוקרתי תמונות לעיצוב הבית ציורים לסלון לחדר שינה למטבח לשירותים ציור בסלון בחדר השינה במטבח בשרותים אמנות ישראלית בבית אומנות הישראלית בבתים מעצבים לך את היצירה בדירה צירה חדשנית מקורית דירות חדשניות מקוריות יוקרתיות תמונות מותאמות לספה למיטה רעיונות בתכנון הסלון המטבח סלון משרד מטבח משרדים סלונים ספות יפות צבעוניות טקסטורות טיפ והדרכה בתיכנון צבע לקיר צבעים לקירות קיר בהיר קירות בהירים משטח ככה משטחים כהים חלל מינימליסטי חללים מינימליסטיים צבעים לבן שחור אדום כתום כחול תכלת סגול צהוב ירוק בצבעים לבנים שחורים אדומים כתומים כחולים סגולים צהובים ירוקים באדום בכתום בצהוב בירוק בכחול בסגול בשחור בלבן מדרגות מרחפות מדרגה מרחבת חדרי ילדים מבוגרים הורים תינוקות דקורציה של הבתים הום דקור תל אביב חיפה ירושלים באר שבע חולון בת יום ראשון לציור אשדוד גבעתיים רמת גן פתח תקווה הרצליה נתינה חיפוי לקיר חיפויים לקירות בריקים הקיר הלבן סגנונות של דירות כפרי עמוס דקורטיבי כפריים חלל גדול קטן חללים גדולים קטנים ארונות שידות ארון דישה שולחן שולחנות כיסא כיסאות חלון חלונות מנורה מנורות אביזר אביזרים לבית פרטי לבתים פרטיים גינה גינות בחוץ בפנים חוץ פנים חרב תחושה מרחב מרחבים צרו קשר צור קשרים בקישור הבא ליצירה הקשר המעצב הפרטים העיצוב הפרטי אישי אינטימי רומנטי אווירה רומנטית אווירה נקייה רפי פרץ צייר ישראלי אמן עכשווי מודרני ציירים ישראלים אמנים ישראליים אומנים עכשוויים מודרניים יוצרים חדשניים מקוריים אומנות ישראלית עכשווית מודרנית חדשנית מקורית אמן ישראלי עכשווי מודרני חדשני מקורי יוצר יצירות ישראליות עכשוויות מודרניות מקוריות חדשניות התמונה היפה התמונות היפות הציור המיוחד הציורים המיוחדים הצייר הישראלי העכשווי המודרני הישראלי האמן החדשני המקורי האמנים הישראליים העכשוויים המודרניים המקוריים החדשניים המעצבים

       

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ARMANI HOTEL DUBAI

At the Burj Khalifa Tower, Dubai

 

General Manager: Jason Harding

Executive Chef: Emiliano Bernasconi

Head Chef, Armani/Ristorante: Alessandro Salvatico

Architect: Adrian Smith, SOM (Skidmore Owings & Merrill)

Designer: Giorgio Armani

Interior Designer: Wilson Associates

 

dubai.armanihotels.com

In this Alabama house, interior designers Paige Schnell and Doug Davis of Tracery Interiors painted walls Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter, a lovely pale gray that provides a nice contrast with the dark floors. The Bernhardt bed in natural linen is from Three Sheets. Throw pillow from Ankasa.

 

Photo by Jonny Valiant, House Beautiful.

With the concentration that only a small child can muster, she re-arranged the Christmas Manger at Frank's and Emily's.

Modern mosaicist, interior designer, abstract painter – Bay Area artist Mary Henry was a woman ahead of her time. Some of Henry’s earliest pieces were beautiful abstract mosaic murals. The one pictured here graces the exterior of the Bank of the West (formerly a First National Bank) at 1010 S. 1st Street in Downtown San Jose. Completed around 1958

We are one of the best interior designers in Dubai . Groundbreaking projects have been accomplished by us. Contact for more information.