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

 

Tonight, Lettice is entertaining 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, in the dining room of her Cavendish Mews flat: a room equally elegantly appointed with striking black japanned Art Deco furnishings intermixed with a select few Eighteenth Century antiques. The room is heady with the thick perfume of roses brought back from Glynes, the Chetwynd’s palatial Georgian family estate in Wiltshire, from where Lettice has recently returned after visiting a neighbour of sorts of her parents, Mr. Alisdair Gifford who wishes Lettice to decorate a room for his Australian wife Adelina, to house her collection of blue and white china. A bowl full of delicate white blooms graces the black japanned dining table as a centrepiece, whilst a smaller vase of red roses sits on the sideboard at the feet of Lettice’s ‘Modern Woman’ statue, acquired from the nearby Portland Gallery in Bond Street. Silver and crystal glassware sparkle in the light cast by both candlelight and electric light. The pair of old friends have just finished a course of Suprême de Volaille Jeanette: a fillet of chicken served with a rich white roux creamy sauce, ordered from Harrod’s Meat and Fish Hall* and warmed up and finished off by Edith, Lettice’s maid, in the Cavendish Mews kitchen. Gerald returns to the table with two small glasses of port after filling them from a bottle of liqueur in Lettice’s cocktail cabinet in the corner of the room just as Edith steps across the threshold of the dining room carrying a silver tray laden with three types of cheese and an assortment of biscuits, wafers and crackers.

 

“About time, Edith.” Lettice mutters irritably as Edith approaches and slides the tray gently onto the dining table. “Careful! Don’t scratch the table’s surface.”

 

“I’m sorry, Miss.” Edith says as she blushes, a lack of understanding filling her face. “I… I didn’t realise I was scratching it.”

 

“Well, you haven’t, Edith,” she snaps back. “But you need to be more careful!”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith bobs a curtsey, a wounded look on her usually bright face.

 

Glancing between Lettice toying distractedly with the rope of pearls about her neck looking anywhere but at either her maid or himself, and the poor embarrassed domestic, Gerald pipes up, “There’s nothing to apologise for, Edith. There’s no harm done. Miss Chetwynd is just a bit tired and overwrought. Aren’t you Lettice darling?”

 

When Lettice doesn’t answer, whether because she hasn’t heard Gerald as she gets lost in her own thoughts, or because she knows that she is in the wrong, admonishing her maid like that for no reason, Gerald adds, “The Suprême de Volaille Jeanette was delicious. Thank you.” He then gently indicates with a movement of his kind eyes and a swift sweeping gesture of his hand that she should go.

 

“Yes Sir. Thank you, Sir.” Edith replies as she bobs a second curtsey and quickly scuttles back through the green baize door leading from the diming room back into the service area of the flat.

 

“You don’t seem yourself at all, Lettice darling!” Gerald says in concern once he estimates that Edith is out of earshot. “Upbraiding Edith like that, and for no good reason. She didn’t mark the table. You’ve been in a funk ever since you came back from Wiltshire.” He pauses momentarily and reconsiders. “Actually no, you’ve been like this for a little while before that.” He looks at her knowingly. “What’s the matter with you, darling?”

 

“Oh I’m sorry.” Lettice sighs.

 

“It’s not me you should be sorry to.”

 

“I’ll apologise to Edith a little bit later. I’ll let her settle down first.”

 

“Well, I should hope you will.” Gerald takes a sip and cocks his eyebrow over his eye as he stares at Lettice. “Alright, out with it! What’s the matter, then?”

 

“Looking at me the way you are, can’t you guess, Gerald darling?”

 

“It’s that rather awful Fabian** charlatan, Gladys, isn’t it?” Gerald replies. As he does, he shudders as he remembers the awful snub Lady Gladys gave him.

 

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 the Bloomsbury flat of her ward, Phoebe Chambers. When Lettice agreed to take on the commission, Lady Gladys said she would arrange a time for Lettice to inspect the flat the next time Lady Gladys was in London. The day it happened, Lettice was invited to hear Lady Gladys give a reading from her latest romance novel ‘Miranda’ at its launch in the Selfridge’s book department. Wanting company, and thinking he might enjoy the outing, Lettice invited Gerald to join her. When Lady Gladys met Gerald, she took an instant dislike to him and snubbed him, calling him ‘Mister Buttons’ much to his chagrin.

 

“Well done, Gerald darling.” Lettice replies sulkily, toying idly with her own glass.

 

“So, what’s the trouble with Gladys now?” Gerald asks. “Come on, tell me all the ghastly details.”

 

“What’s the point, Gerald darling? It won’t make one iota of difference.” Her shoulders slump forward as she speaks.

 

“You don’t know that.” Gerald counters. “If nothing else, it will probably make you feel better just talking about it, and hopefully by unblocking the frustrations you so obviously feel, you’ll be a bit kinder to poor Edith.” He gives her a hopefully glance.

 

“I know. Edith didn’t deserve my ire.”

 

“Especially when she didn’t do anything wrong. It would be a shame to lose such a good maid. Good servants like Edith are hard to come by.”

 

“I know, Gerald! I know!”

 

“If I could afford to employ her full time as a seamstress, I would. However I can only afford Molly to do some piecework for me a few days a week at the moment. But once my atelier expands, you’d better watch out. I’ll poach her.”

 

“Edith?”

 

“Yes of course, darling. Who else?”

 

“As a seamstress? Why?”

 

“Good heavens! Haven’t you noticed how smartly turned out she is when she’s not in uniform and is going out?” Gerald asks with incredulity. When Lettice shakes her head coyly he continues, “For a woman who has an eye for detail, you can be very unobservant sometimes. Edith, like most working girls, makes her own clothes, I’d imagine from patterns in one of those cheap women’s magazines directed towards middle-class housewives I see flapping in the breeze at newspaper kiosks. However, unlike a great many of them, she obviously has a natural aptitude for sewing. That’s why I’d take her on as a seamstress.”

 

“I must confess, I’ve never really noticed what Edith wears. She’s just…” Lettice isn’t quite sure how to phrase it. “She’s just there.”

 

“Well, one day she may not be,” Gerald warns before taking another sip of liqueur. “And then you’ll be in trouble trying to find her like as a replacement. Anyway,” he coughs. “I’m not going to pinch her from you just yet. Now, what’s the problem with Gladys?”

 

Lettice lets out a very heavy sigh. “Oh, she’s awful, Gerald darling: positively frightful. She rings me nearly every day, or sometimes several times a day, hounding me! I’m starting to make Edith answer the telephone more often now, because I’m terrified that it will be Gladys.”

 

“Well, we all know how much dear Edith hates the telephone.”

 

“Well, usually that would be true, but she knows that Gladys is Madeline St John, and I’ve told her that Gladys promises to give her a few signed copies of her books one of these days, so she doesn’t seem to mind when it’s her. Gladys seems to have that common touch with her.”

 

“Common is right.” quips Gerald. “Low-class gutter novelist works her way into the upper echelons by way of an advantageous marriage.”

 

“Gerald!” Lettice gasps

 

“It’s true Lettice, and you must know it by now, even if you didn’t know it before.”

 

“Well, whatever she may or may not be, Gerald, I just can’t talk to her directly. I need a moment to gird my loins*** before I take on the unpleasant task of talking to her, or perhaps a more appropriate description would be, being spoken to by her, at considerable length.”

 

“You haven’t corrupted poor Edith and coerced her into telling little white lies for you when Gladys does ring and say that you’re out.”

 

“No!” Lettice gives Gerald a guilty side glance. “Well not yet anyway.” she corrects. “I’ve thought about doing it, and it’s a very tempting idea. However, I know how much Edith already hates answering the telephone, and being such a despicably honest girl, I think asking her to fib for me, especially to her favourite romance writer, might be just a bridge too far for her.”

 

“Damn the goodness of your maid, Lettice darling.” Gerald replies jokingly with a cheeky smile causing his mouth to turn up impishly, as he cuts a slice of cheese and puts it on a water cracker wafer, before lifting it to his lips.

 

“Oh you’re no help!” Lettuce swats at her best friend irritably. “You make me feel guilty for even countenancing such a thought.”

 

“Well, someone has to try and keep you honest in this sinful city, darling.” he jokes again. “Mummy would never forgive me if I didn’t try and keep you as virtuous as possible.”

 

“I’d believe that of Aunt Gwen.” Lettice agrees. “On the other hand, Mater is convinced that you’re the root of the destruction of her precious, obsequious youngest daughter.”

 

“Sadie is wiser and more observant than I’ve ever given her credit for.” Gerald murmurs in surprise. “I should be more charitable to her in future as regards her intellect.”

 

“That I should like to see.” Lettice giggles, a smile breaking across her lips and brightening her face, dispelling some of the gloom.

 

“That you will never see.” Gerald replies firmly. “That’s better. At least I made you laugh.”

 

“You always make me laugh, darling Gerald.” Lettice reaches across the table and grasps his hand lovingly, winding her fingers around his bigger fisted hand. “You are the best and most supportive friend I could ever hope to have.”

 

“Jolly good, my dear. Now, besides telephoning far too often, what else is the trouble with Gladys?” Gerald presses.

 

“Well, she seems to want to be in control of everything in relation to Pheobe’s Bloomsbury pied-à-terre redecoration.”

 

“Isn’t Gladys footing the bill, Lettice darling?”

 

“Well yes, she is.”

 

“Then it seems to me that she has every right to be involved in the decision making that goes on, particularly as you’ve told me that Phoebe shows a lack of interest in the whole project.”

 

“Yes, but what Gladys is doing is taking over. I don’t think she’d even engage my services if I didn’t have the contacts in the painting, papering and furnishing business she needs. I have no chance to exercise any of my own judgement. Anything I do has to be checked by her: the paint tint for the walls, the staining of the floorboards, the fabric for the furnishings. And she has demonstrated that she has no real interest in my ideas.”

 

“Hhhmmm…” Gerald begins, chewing his mouthful of cheese and biscuit thoughtfully before continuing. “That does sound a trifle tiresome.”

 

“A trifle tiresome? Gerald, you always were the master of understatement.”

 

“I see no reason to panic. She is the client exercising her rights. And since she is the one paying for your services, indulge her in her necessity to be consulted on all facets of the redecoration.”

 

“Oh I’m doing that. Against my better judgement, I’m having floral chintz draperies hung in the drawing room and bedroom because that’s what she wants.”

 

“Good heavens!” Gerald exclaims, nearly choking on a fresh mouthful of cheese and wafer biscuit. “You, selecting chintz as part of your décor decisions?”

 

“My point exactly. It isn’t me that’s decided that, it’s Gladys who has. You know how much I loathe chintz at the best of times.” Lettice shudders at the thought. “I tried hinting at some plain green hangings instead as a very nice alternative, but like anything else where I try my best to negotiate for Phoebe, I am barked at and told in no uncertain terms that I will do no such thing.”

 

“Negotiate for Phoebe?”

 

“Yes, now that I’m well and truly wound up in what you rightly called Gladys’ sticky spiderweb, I’m beginning to see things for what they truly are.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“For a start, I don’t think Phoebe is disinterested in the renovations to her pied-à-terre at all. I’ve seen with my own eyes now, how whenever Pheobe expresses an opinion contrary to that of Gladys, Gladys quickly snuffs out any dissention. As far as Gladys is concerned, her choice is not only the best and right choice, but the only choice to make. Pheobe wants to keep some of her parents’ belongings in the flat, but Gladys won’t hear of it! She wants a clean sweep! I suggest a compromise, but Gladys dismisses it. So, the colours to go on the walls, the furnishings, the fabrics, even the hideous chintz curtains have all been decided upon and approved by Gladys, and Phoebe doesn’t even get a chance to express an opinion. Phoebe isn’t disinterested, she’s simply overruled and completely smothered by Gladys’ overbearing nature.”

 

“Delicious.” Gerald murmurs as he leans his elbows on the black japanned surface of the dining table and leans forward conspiratorially.

 

“It’s not delicious at all!” Lettice splutters. “It’s a frightful state of affairs!”

 

“Well, in truth, that really does sound bloody*****, Lettice darling!”

 

“Like I said, it’s a dreadful state of affairs! I feel as if I am betraying not only poor Pheobe, but the memory of her dead parents in favour of a domineering woman whom no-one it seems can stand up to.”

 

“Have you tried her husband, Sir John?”

 

“He kowtows to her wishes as much as anyone else. I now understand why he has such a dogged look upon his face. I thought it was just age.”

 

“When in fact it was just Gladys?”

 

“Indeed! And what’s even worse is that Gladys is wearing me down now too. It’s just easier to agree to everything she says, and not even attempt a compromise in Phoebe’s favour.”

 

“Well, whilst I know you don’t like the situation, from my own personal experience of dealing with difficult clients, I can say that the path of least resistance is sometimes the best. Do you remember that frock I made for Sophie Munro, the American shipping magnate’s daughter?”

 

Lettice considers Gerald’s question for a moment. “Yes, I think I do. Wasn’t it pale pink with blue trimming?”

 

“Indeed it was, Lettice darling: pink linen with blue trim, with a bias cut drape over one sleeve and a flounced skirt. Poor Sophie has an… ahem…” Gerald clears his throat rather awkwardly as he thinks of the correct phrase. “A rather Rubenesque figure, and the flounced skirt was perhaps less flattering than something with long pleats, which was I had suggested to Mrs. Munro.”

 

“But Mrs. Munro was like Gladys?”

 

“She was, darling, and she wouldn’t hear a word of it. A flounced skirt was what Mrs. Munro wanted, and a flounced skirt was what Sophie received, and she flounced her way back to America, where I’m sure her rather voluptuous derrière will be commented upon by every young eligible man on Long Island, for all the wrong reasons. However, I did it, and I cut ties with Mrs. Munro because now that my atelier is finally turning a modest profit, I can. I don’t need recommendations from her, but I do need her to be happy so that she will at least speak favourably of me, rather than say disparaging things. The same goes for you. Do what Gladys wants and then be done with her. Do it as quickly as possible, then the pain will be over, and she will praise you to boot.”

 

“I can’t help but feel badly for Phoebe though, Gerald.”

 

“I know you do, and I feel sorry for poor Sophie Munro being laughed at behind her back by young cads as she tries to be beguiling with a large derrière, but there you have it. You cannot be responsible to solve the relationship between mother and daughter.”

 

“Aunt and ward.” Lettice corrects.

 

“It equates to the same.” Gerald counters. “You are a businesswoman, Lettice, not an agony aunt******.”

 

“Well, you’re a businessman, and you seem to be a good agony aunt to me.”

 

Gerald and Lettice chuckle before Gerald replies, “Indeed I am, but I’m also a friend. You aren’t friends with Pheobe, and even if you were, you still wouldn’t be able to solve Gladys’ overbearing personality. She is who she is, and Pheobe has to learn how to make her way through life with it. Perhaps you will afford her a little freedom from Gladys by redecorating her pied-à-terre, so she can escape from under Glady’s overbearing shadow, even if the redecoration is not quite as Phoebe would have it. Even then, Phoebe will probably add her own personal touches to her new home over time. It’s only natural that she should.”

 

“Oh,” Lettice sighs heavily. “I suppose you’re right, Gerald.”

 

“Of course I’m right, Lettice darling. I’m always right.” he adds jokingly.

 

“Now don’t you start!” Lettice replies wearily before smiling as she recognises Gerald’s remark as a jest, teasing about Lady Gladys’ overbearing personality.

 

“Well, it sounds like you need a bit of cheering up, Lettice darling,” Gerald goes on as he places another slice of cheese on a biscuit.

 

“I could indeed, Gerald darling!”

 

“Well then, if you are a good girl, and apologise to Edith like I told you, like Cinderella you shall go to the ball!”

 

“Oh you do talk in riddles sometimes, Gerald darling! What on earth do you mean?”

 

“My birthday!” Gerald beams. “Come join me at Hattie’s down in Putney for my birthday!”

 

“You’re having your birthday at Hattie’s?” Lettice queries, her voice rising in surprise. “I thought we were going to the Café Royal****** to celebrate: my treat!”

 

“Now, now, be calm, Lettice darling! We are, but Hattie wants to throw a party for me on my birthday at Putney with Cyril, Charlie Dunnage and a few of the other chaps she has living with her in the house, so we’ll do that first, and then go to dinner at the Café Royal: your treat.”

 

“Well…” Lettice says warily. Her stomach flips every time Gerald mentions his lover, Cyril, an oboist who plays at various theatres in the West End and lives in the Putney home of Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford, who has turned her residence into a boarding house for theatrical homosexual men, not because she is in any way jealous of their relationship, but because she knows that Gerald being a homosexual carries great consequences should he be caught in flagrante with Cyril. Homosexuality is illegal******** and carries heavy penalties including prison sentences with hard labour, not to mention the shame and social ostracization that would follow any untoward revelations. It would mean the end of his fashion house and all his dreams.

 

Gerald misinterprets the look on his best friend’s face as being misgivings about the party. “Oh come on Lettice! Every time I’ve been spending the night with Cyril down in Putney, which has been quite a lot lately,” he confesses with a shy, yet happy smile. “I’ve been sneaking one or two bottles of champagne into his room, which he’s been stashing under the bed, so there will be plenty to drink, and Hattie is making me a birthday cake, so it will be a rather jolly party. You aren’t still imagining Hattie to be a usurper to you in my affections, are you Lettuce Leaf?”

 

“Don’t call me that Gerald! You know how I hate it!” scowls Lettice. “I’ll call you Mr. Buttons!” She threatens.

 

“You can call me what you like, Lettice darling, only please say you’ll come! You’re my best and oldest chum! It would make me so happy!”

 

“Oh very well, Gerald. Of course I’ll come.”

 

“Jolly good show, Lettice darling!” Gerald enthuses. “We’ll have a whizz of a time!”

 

*Harrod’s Meat and Fish Hall (the predecessor to today’s food hall) was opened in 1903. There was nothing like it in London at the time. It’s interior, conceived by Yorkshire Arts and Crafts ceramicist and artist William Neatby, was elaborately decorated from floor to ceiling with beautiful Art Nouveau tiles made by Royal Doulton, and a glass roof that flooded the space with light. Completed in nine weeks it featured ornate frieze tiles displaying pastoral scenes of sheep and fish, as well as colourful glazed tiles. By the 1920s, when this scene is set, the Meat and Fish Hall was at its zenith with so much produce on display and available to wealthy patrons that you could barely see the interior.

 

**The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

 

***To gird one’s loins: to prepare oneself to deal with a difficult or stressful situation, is likely a Hebraism, often used in the King James Bible (e.g., 2 Kings 4:29). Literally referred to the need to strap a belt around one's waist, i.e. when getting up, in order to avoid the cloak falling off; or otherwise before battle, to unimpede the legs for running.

 

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

 

*****The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” or “sounding bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.

 

******An agony aunt is a person, usually a woman, who gives advice to people with personal problems, especially in a regular magazine or newspaper article.

 

*******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.

 

********Prior to 1967 with the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised private homosexual acts between men aged over 21, homosexuality in England was illegal, and in the 1920s when this story is set, carried heavy penalties including prison sentences with hard labour. The law was not changed for Scotland until 1980, or for Northern Ireland until 1982.

 

Lettice’s fashionable Mayfair flat dining room is perhaps a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures I have collected over time.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The silver tray of biscuits have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The empty wine glasses and the glass bowl in the centre of the table are also 1:12 artisan miniatures all made of hand spun and blown glass. They are made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The vase is especially fine. If you look closely you will see that it is decorated with flower patterns made up of fine threads of glass. The cream roses in the vase were also hand made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The Art Deco dinner plates are part of a much larger set I acquired from a dollhouse suppliers in Shanghai. The cutlery set came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The candlesticks were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

In the background on the console table stand some of Lettice’s precious artisan purchases from the Portland Gallery in Soho. The silver drinks set is made by artisan Clare Bell at the Clare Bell Brass Works in Maine, in the United States. Each goblet is only one centimetre in height and the decanter at the far end is two- and three-quarter centimetres with the stopper inserted. Lettice’s Art Deco ‘Modern Woman’ figure is actually called ‘Christianne’ and was made and hand painted by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. ‘Christianne’ is based on several Art Deco statues and is typical of bronze and marble statues created at that time for the luxury market in the buoyant 1920s.

 

Lettice’s dining room is furnished with Town Hall Miniatures furniture, which is renown for their quality. The only exceptions to the room is the Chippendale chinoiserie carver chair (the edge of which just visible on the far left-hand side of the photo) which was made by J.B.M. Miniatures.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug hand made by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia. The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. 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 to the west of London, in nearby Buckinghamshire, at Dorrington House, a smart Jacobean manor house of the late 1600s built for a wealthy merchant, situated in High Wycombe, where Lettice’s elder sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), resides with her husband Charles Lanchenbury and their three children, Harrold, Annabelle and baby Piers. Situated within walking distance of the market town’s main square, the elegant red brick house with its high-pitched roof and white painted sash windows still feels private considering its close proximity to the centre of the town thanks to an elegant and restrained garden surrounding it, which is enclosed by a high red brick wall.

 

Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.

 

Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”

 

Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and was welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year. On New Year’s Eve, Lally, sitting next to Lettice, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, and since arriving at Dorrington House with her sister and brother-in-law, she has enjoyed being quiet, spending quality time with her niece and nephews in the nursery, strolling the gardens with her sister or simply curling up in a window seat and reading.

 

We find ourselves in Dorrington House’s bright and airy breakfast room with its Dutch yellow painted walls, Chinese silk carpet, elegant Eighteenth Century furnishings and artwork, where breakfast is being served. Even in the weak morning light of winter, the breakfast room is always light and bright thanks to the large east facing windows overlooking the garden which catch the morning light. Charles, is sitting at the round Georgian table with its thin bands of inlay, dressed in his city clothes, reading the Daily Mail, which has been carefully ironed** for him by Edgars, the Lanchenbury’s butler, and munching a thin slice of toast when Lally strolls in, dressed in the uniform of all upper-class women in the counties during winter, a tweed skirt, thick stockings, a white blouse with a lace collar and a loosely draped cardigan: in Lally’s case a lovely warming chocolate brown one.

 

“Morning, Charles darling.” Lally says brightly as she kisses her husband gently on the top of his pomaded hair before taking her place adjunct to him at the breakfast table.

 

“Morning,” he mutters gruffly in reply as he concentrates on an article about the British submarine, HMS L24, sinking in a collision in the English Channel***. “Edgars says the eggs shouldn’t be long.”

 

“Oh good!” Lally enthuses, just as the door to the breakfast room is opened by the butler and he walks in carrying a small silver salver, upon which stand two eggs in matching silver eggcups. “Speaking of the devil.”

 

“Good morning Mrs. Lanchenbury.” the butler says politely. “Cook says to tell you that the sausages and bacon will be arriving shortly.”

 

“Good morning Edgars.” Lally replies cheerfully. “You and Cook have perfect timing, as usual.”

 

“We try, Mrs. Lanchenbury. We try.” he answers, flushing at his mistress’ compliment as he discreetly deposits one egg next to Charles’ plate and one next to Lally’s. “Will there be anything else madam?”

 

Lally looks across the breakfast table set for two. There are several slices of Mrs. Sawyers’ homemade toast in the silver toast rack, butter in a glass dish, a tureen of porridge and a bowl of fruit. The teapot emits curlicues of steam from its spout as it sits squatly next to Charles’ teacup. “I don’t think so, Edgars, but I’ll ring if I do.”

 

“Very good Mrs. Lanchenbury.” the butler replies before retreating discreetly through the door he came in through and closes it behind him.

 

Lally goes to strike the top of her egg when Charles clears his throat rather loudly as he turns the page of the Daily Mirror. After many years of marriage, Lally knows this particular fruity clearing of his throat is the entrée to a conversation with her husband about something that is irking him, so she pushes her egg aside and picks up a slice of toast instead.

 

“Yes Charles?”

 

“Hhhmmm?” he answers with raised eyebrows without looking up from his newspaper.

 

“Don’t be obtuse, my dear.” Lally continues with great patience. “When you clear your throat like that, it usually indicates that something is irritating you. So come on then, Charles. What is it?”

 

“Oh it’s nothing, nothing at all, Lally darling.”

 

Lally’s brow crumples. “You and I have been married for too long to know that isn’t true.”

 

Charles closes his newspaper and folds it in half, paying undue attention to each fold, before placing it atop his copy of The Times to his right on the tabletop. He then turns to his wife, who has paused mid stroke of butter to her toast, looking at him with a piqued gaze. “What are you and Tice planning to do with your day, whilst I’m off to London?”

 

“Yes, I noticed your town suit as soon as I walked in. Must you go in today?”

 

“Father and I are meeting with a few potential investors this morning in town, so I fear I must.”

 

“Doesn’t your father ever have a holiday, Charles?” Lally shakes her head when her husband gives her a nonchalant shrug and then continues. “Well, whilst you’re in town, Tice and I are going to play tennis down at The Barrows with Nettie Fisher and Alice Newsome. Why? Surely you don’t object?”

 

“Why on earth would I object to you and Tice playing tennis with Nettie Fisher and Alice Newsome?”

 

“Well, something’s obviously irking you, this morning.” Lally says sulkily, finishing buttering her toast before returning it to resting on the edge of the faceted glass butter dish.

 

“So, she isn’t sick then?”

 

“Who? Nettie Fisher or Alice Newsome?” Lally asks in surprise. “No!”

 

“Not them, Tice!” Charles bristles. “Is Tice ailing for something?”

 

“Well yes,” Lally begins. “Well no… well…”

 

“It’s just,” Charles interrupts his wife’s deliberations over her sister’s wellbeing. “I happened to run into Mrs. Sawyer on my way into breakfast and she was carrying a tray for your sister up to her room. I would have thought she would be having breakfast with us.”

 

“Ahh,” Lally sighs, cocking her thinly plucked and shaped eyebrow and nodding. “So that’s what’s irking you. It’s the fact that I’m letting Tice take breakfast in bed. Is that it?”

 

“Well, now you come to mention it.” Charles admits. “It’s just if she isn’t ill, and she isn’t a married lady, Tice should be having breakfast down here with us****.”

 

“Charles, darling,” Lally reaches out her right hand and places it lovingly over her husband’s left hand as it rests on the edge of the table next to the butter dish. “You know full well that Tice is pining for Selwyn. Their forced separation is hurting her so badly. I just don’t want her to have to worry about facing us first thing in the morning, when she evidently isn’t up to it.”

 

“Are her loving sister and brother-in-law so taxing to her, Lally darling?” Charles asks with concern.

 

“You will be,” Lally withdraws her hand and cuts her buttered toast in half with crisp slices with her silver knife. “If you insist on being like the Spanish inquisition!”

 

“Come now Lally!” Charles chides. “I’m hardly that. It would be remiss of me not to ask after Tice’s health in the morning.”

 

“And it would be wrong of you to do so, when you know full well that she is unhappy and only pretending to be bright and gay because Mater told her to be.”

 

“Well, I just don’t think Sadie would approve.” He reaches over for his egg and gently taps the top, breaking the shell.

 

“Oh pooh, Sadie!” Lally utters, hitting her egg sharply with the flat of her spoon in irritation, breaking the shell and causing the top of the eggshell to implode and imbed itself into the white of the egg.

 

“Temper, temper, Lally dear.”

 

“This is my house, not Mater’s, so if she were here, she could jolly well keep her nose out of how I run it, thank you very much, Charles.”

 

Charles raises his hands in defence. “I’m only suggesting that you are doing the same to Tice as Cosmo did, when she went home to Glynes after all that bad business with Lady Zinnia about Selwyn.”

 

“And what does that mean?”

 

“I’m merely implying, my dear, that you might be mollycoddling her a little. I was talking to Sadie at Christmas…”

 

“Oh not my mother again!” Lally’s eyes roll back in her head as she casts her frustrated glance to the ornate plaster ceiling above.

 

Ignoring his wife’s rude interruption, Charles continues, “I was taking to Sadie about Tice at Christmas, and she told me what your father did for Tice when she stayed at Glynes. Feeding her, her favourite shortbread, or allowing her to loll the morning away having breakfast in bed isn’t going to help Tice get on with things as Sadie suggested. I don’t always agree with your mother, but I happen to on this occasion. Tice can’t just spend a year withering away. She needs to get on with things.”

 

“Amazingly, I agree with Mater too, Charles.” Lally sighs. “However, Tice has been doing that with more gusto than I think she realised she had, and, well, Christmas has impacted her stamina. I just want to take care of Tice for a little bit, and allow her to recover. The best way I can do that is to let her come here and just be, Charles. She can be mopey and sullen, and she doesn’t have to pretend, here, within these four walls.”

 

“Well, I can’t say I entirely agree with your course of action, my dear, but then again, she isn’t my sister. I’m sure Mother, god rest her soul,” He casts his eyes upwards at the mention of his late mother. “Wouldn’t have let Penelope lie abed, even if she was suffering a broken heart.”

 

“But I’m not your mother, Charles.” Lally affirms with a steady voice. “And as you have acknowledged, she is my sister, so I will do what I think is best, and be damned for it if needs must. Anyway, I’m not entirely letting her off the hook. She has agreed to my suggestion of luncheon with Nettie and Alice today.”

 

“A tennis luncheon is hardly up to Tice’s usual standards of sociability, Lally.”

 

“That’s true Charles, but it’s a start. She didn’t object, like she did the other day when I suggested that we have luncheon with Lady Buchanan, so it’s a start.”

 

“I think I’d have objected if you suggested to me that we should have luncheon with Lady Buchanan.” Charles remarks disconcertedly. “Nasty old trout that she is.”

 

“Charles!” Lally exclaims as she bursts out laughing. “I never knew you despised her so.”

 

“Not despise, necessarily,” Charles answers, spooning up a mouthful of egg white as he tries to think of the right word. “More dislike intensely.”

 

“Well, I’ll be sure to deflect any dinner invites from the Major and Lady Buchanan, then.”

 

“I should think you would, Lally.”

 

“Anyway, going back to Tice. I’m also being a little selfish for having her here.”

 

“And how is that, Lally darling?”

 

“Well, I shall be happy to have her with me for company, since you are deserting me again so soon after New Year, as you set sail with your father, bound for Bombay on the P&O*****.”

 

“It’s not by choice, my darling, I can assure you.” Charles looks imploringly at his wife. “It’s father’s wish, just as it is his wish that I go up to town to see the investors he’s lined up for us to meet. Ever since Maison Lyonses****** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue have accepted our Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, we can’t seem to supply enough of the damn stuff for them. Hopefully with money from these prospective investors, we can expand the tea export business in India.”

 

“I know, Charles. I’ll just miss you, is all.”

 

“And I shall miss you.” Charles replies, reaching across the table with puckered lips, kissing his wife tenderly. “Perhaps when the baby is a bit older, you and the children can come out to India for a visit.”

 

“And join the ranks of insufferable Memsaabs******* on the subcontinent?” Lally balks. “No fear!”

 

“We’ll see.” Charles replies, knowingly.

 

“Anyway, you’ll be hundreds of miles away, chasing after dusky maidens around prospective tea plantations,” Lally adds cheekily in jest. “That you won’t be here to know what Tice and I get up to.”

 

“Well,” Charles swallows a mouthful of egg. “Just don’t mollycoddle her, is all I’m saying. It won’t do her any good.”

 

“I promise you, my darling, that I won’t.” Lally agrees. “Besides, I don’t know how long I’ll have Tice here for, anyway.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Oh, I was chatting with Aunt Egg on New Year’s Eve at Glynes, and she seems to have something up her sleeve for Tice.”

 

“Oh?” Charles queries.

 

“I don’t know exactly what. She mentioned something about a lady romance novelist.”

 

“Heavens!” Charles throws his hands up in despair. “Surely, she doesn’t intend for Tice to read any more of those appalling romance novels than she already does? That will only make her feel worse!”

 

“I don’t know Charles,” Lally replies. “You know how Aunt Egg can be when she has something half planned. None of it made much sense. But, I’m sure everything will make itself known in due course.”

 

*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.

 

**It was a common occurrence in large and medium-sized houses that employed staff for the butler or chief parlour maid to iron the newspapers. The task of butlers ironing newspapers is not as silly as it sounds. Butlers were not ironing out creases, but were using the hot iron to dry the ink so that the paper could be easily read without the reader's ending up with smudged fingers and black hands, a common problem with newspapers in the Victorian and Edwardian ages.

 

***The HMS L24 was built by Vickers at their Barrow-in-Furness shipyard, launched on the 19th of February 1919, and completed at an unknown date. The boat was sunk with all hands lost in a collision with the battleship Resolution during an exercise off Portland Bill in the English Channel on the 10th of January 1924. A memorial is located in St Ann's Church in HMNB Portsmouth.

 

****Before the Second World War, if you were a married Lady, it was customary for you to have your breakfast in bed, because you supposedly don't have to socialise to find a husband. Unmarried women were expected to dine with the men at the breakfast table, especially on the occasion where an unmarried lady was a guest at a house party, as it gave her exposure to the unmarried men in a more relaxed atmosphere and without the need for a chaperone.

 

*****In 1837, the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company first secured a Government contract for the regular carriage of mail between Falmouth and the Peninsular ports as far as Gibraltar. The company, established in 1835 by the London shipbroking partnership of Brodie McGhie Willcox (1786-1861) and Arthur Anderson (1792-1868) and the Dublin Ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne (1880-1851) had begun a regular steamer service for passengers and cargo between London, Spain and Portugal using the 206 ton paddle steamer William Fawcett. The growing inclination of early Twentieth Century shipping enterprises to merge their interests, and group themselves together, did not go unnoticed at P&O, which made its first major foray in this direction in 1910 with the acquisition of Wilhelm Lund’s Blue Anchor Line. By 1913, with a paid-up capital of some five and half million pounds and over sixty ships in service, several more under construction and numerous harbour craft and tugs to administer to the needs of this great fleet all counted, the P&O Company owned over 500,000 tons of shipping. In addition to the principal mail routes, through Suez to Bombay and Ceylon, where they divided then for Calcutta, Yokohama and Sydney, there was now the ‘P&O Branch Line’ service via the Cape to Australia and various feeder routes. The whole complex organisation was serviced by over 200 agencies stationed at ports throughout the world. At the end of 1918, the Group was further strengthened by its acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Orient Line and in 1920, the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest established sea-going steamship undertaking, was taken over. In 1923 the Strick Line was acquired too and P&O became, for a time, the largest shipping company in the world. With the 1920s being the golden age of steamship travel, P&O was the line to cruise with. P&O had grown into a group of separate operating companies whose shipping interests touched almost every part of the globe. By March 2006, P&O had grown to become one of the largest port operators in the world and together with P&O Ferries, P&O Ferrymasters, P&O Maritime Services, P&O Cold Logistics and its British property interests, the company was, itself, acquired by DP World for three point three billion pounds.

 

******J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.

 

*******Memsaab or Memsahib, a variation of Sahib, an Arabic term, which is also a loanword in several languages. Memsaab is a title for a woman in a position of authority and/or the wife of a Sahib.

 

This neat Georgian interior and fine breakfast fare may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The round breakfast table in the centre of the room, which tilts like a real loo table, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, which came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. On its surface the crockery, silver cutlery and serviettes with their napkin rings came from online stockists of miniatures on E-Bay. The fruit bowl is a hand painted example of miniature artisan, Rachel Munday. The fruit inside it all comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The toast rack and egg cups come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The eggs in the egg cups are amongst some of the smallest miniatures I own, and came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The square of butter in the glass dish has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The 1:12 miniature copy of ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Times’, is made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

The Chippendale style chairs surrounding the round breakfast table, and the carver chair in the background, are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

The sideboard featuring fine marquetry banding and collapsible extensions at either end appears to have been made by the same unknown artisan who made the round table. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop at the same time as the table. The Georgian style silver lidded tureens on the sideboard’s surface I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The vase on the sideboard is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. Made of polymer clay the irises and foxgloves in the vase are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They came from a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.

 

The Regency corner cabinet with its elegant gilt detailing and glass door is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. The beautiful collection of china on display inside the cabinet, like the vase on the sideboard, is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany.

 

The Georgian style paintings of silhouettes hanging around the room came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House shop, and the Chinese silk carpet came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

a celebration of enduring friendships

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 visiting her family home for Christmas and has stayed on to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them as well. Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.

 

Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. ‘But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”

 

Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and has been welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year.

 

It is New Year’s Eve 1923 and Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie are hosting a lavish dinner party in the Georgian Glynes dining room. The grand room is cosy and warm with a roaring fire blazing in the white marble fireplace decorated with garlands of greenery and red satin bows decorated with golden baubles. Lady Sadie has taken some of the best red and white roses from the Glynes hothouses and filled vases with them around the room, giving the entire room a very festive appearance. Their sweet fragrance fills the air, a constant that intermixes with the aromas of each of the eight courses of the New Year dinner prepared in the Glynes kitchen by the Chetwynd’s cook, Mrs, Carsterton and her staff. The Chippendale dining table has been extended by an extra two leaves to allow for additional guests, and under the glow of the crystal chandelier above and candelabras along the table, glassware, gilt edged crockery and silver flatware gleam in the golden light.

 

The room is filled with vociferous conversation and laughter as the guests sit around the table, the formality of Lord Wrexham and Lady Sadie at either end as prescribed in the etiquette required of grander dinners, replaced with the informality of a family dinner, with the guests sitting wherever they please, although the Viscount still presides from his favourite carver at the head of the table. Joining them, in addition to Lettice, are the Chetwynd’s eldest son and heir, Leslie, his wife Arabella, her mother, the now widowed Lady Isobel, and Arabella’s elder brother and best friend to Leslie, Nigel, the newly minted Lord Tyrwhitt. Also, at the table sits Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) and her husband Charles Lanchenbury. Joining them at the Glynes dining table are the Brutons, whose estate adjoins the Glynes Estate: Lord Bruton, Lady Gweneth, their eldest son Roland, and Lettice’s best childhood chum, their second son Gerald, who like Lettice has moved to London, and designs gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Finally to make up the numbers at the table is the Viscount’s younger bohemian artistic sister, Eglantyne (affectionately known as Aunt Egg by her nieces and nephews).

 

Bramley, the Chetwynd’s faithful butler, assisted by Moira, one of the head parlour maids who has taken to assisting wait table at breakfast, luncheon and on informal occasions since the war, serve the third course of the evening: beautifully cooked moist roast beef with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, boiled carrots and peas. They serve the beef course, moving adeptly between the guests, who in spite of it being an informal occasion, are still dressed in full evening wear with the men in dinner jackets and white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels over their gowns.

 

“You know, Tice” Lally remarks to Lettice as she accepts the white gilt edged gravy boat of Mrs. Carsterton’s thick dark gravy from Lettice. “I don’t think Pappa and Mamma have thrown a New Year’s Eve dinner party since 1919.”

 

“Oh no, they did Lally,” corrects her sister kindly as she picks up her knife and fork. “It’s just you weren’t here.”

 

“When?” Lally asks, unable to keep the slight tone of offense out of her question as she drizzles gravy over her roast beef and vegetables.

 

“Two years ago,” her sister clarifies. “But you and Charles were at another party on New Year’s Eve 1921. It was much smaller too, with only Lord and Lady Bruton, Gerald and I in attendance.”

 

“Pardon me for overhearing,” Charles, Lally’s husband pipes up from his seat to the right of his wife, leaning in slightly as he speaks, champagne glass in hand. “But that was the year Father opened up Lanchenbury House for New Year for that rather… ahem!” He clears his throat awkwardly as he contemplates the correct word to use. “Artistic ball. Remember Lally?”

 

“Oh that’s right. Lord Lanchenbury threw a party in 1921. One of his rare moments largesse.” Lally remembers.

 

“Indeed yes.” her husband concurs with a scornful scoff. “Very rare.” He then returns his attention to Lettice and Lally’s Aunt Egg to his right.

 

“It was too good an opportunity for Charles and I to miss,” Lally goes on. “With him throwing open the doors of Lanchenbury house.” She muses, “I have to take my hat off to my father-in-law: it really was a rather marvellous party, full of interesting and artistic people. I’m quite sure Aunt Egg would have loved it.”

 

“Lord Lanchenbury never struck me as the artistic type, Lally.” Lettice remarks in surprise, cutting into her slice of roasted beef. “What with his serious nature, those glowering looks of his he gives us at any sign of perceived levity, and those old fashioned Victorian mutton chops of his*.”

 

“Oh he isn’t.” Lally replies assuredly picking up her own cutlery. “I think most of them were the friends of his Gaiety Girl** paramour of the moment, and her hangers-on, and their hangers on again. It really was quite bohemian.” Lally smiles as her sister suddenly blushes over her roast beef course.

 

“Lally!” Lettice gasps, glancing anxiously first at their father sitting next to her at the head of the table and then through the sparkling icicle crystal pendalogues*** of the candelabra in front of her and looks warily at their mother. Fortunately the Viscount is too busy greedily dissecting the slice of roast beef with fervour on the plate before him, and thankfully Lady Sadie seems to be engrossed in conversation with Leslie. “Really!”

 

“What?” queries her sibling with a peal of laughter. “Don’t tell me that I’ve shocked you again, Tice, with talk of my father-in-law’s penchant for a little paid companionship?”

 

“Well no.” lettice gulps. “But,” she adds, lowering her voice. “At the dinner table, Lally? In front of…” She eyes her parents. “Really? I’d hate for Pater or Mater to hear.”

 

“Oh Pater is too deaf, and Mater too self-absorbed in her own conversation.” Lally assures her sister.

 

As if on cue, her father pipes up gruffly, “What’s that Lally?”

 

Always quick with a smooth honeyed reply, Lettice’s elder sister answers, “I was just saying how good it is of you to throw a dinner party for all of us on New Year’s Eve, Pappa.”

 

“Of course it’s good of me.” her father mutters in self-satisfied reply. “Still, what’s the point of having a big, rambling old house like this if I can’t occasionally fill it with noise, laughter and Bright Young People**** according to my whims?” He reaches out his right hand and lovingly wraps it around his youngest daughter’s left hand as she lets go of her silver fork. “Eh?” He smiles beatifically at Lettice.

 

“Thank you, Pappa.” Lettice mutters as he lets go of her hand and she retrieves her fork from where it leans against the ruffled gilt edged rim of her plate. “It’s very kind of you.”

 

“Well, after the year we’ve all had, what with poor Sherbourne being gone, I felt it was important to bring us all together as a family.” He smiles at Lettice meaningfully again before resuming the dissection of his roast beef.

 

Lally looks ponderingly first at her sister, then her father and then back at her sister again. She waits a moment or two before asking in a whisper into her sister’s diamond earring bejewelled ear, “What was that all about, Tice?”

 

“I think Pater has an ulterior motive for hosting tonight, beyond the superficial idea of gathering us all together in the wake of Uncle Sherbourne’s death.” Lettice whispers in reply.

 

“Really?” Lally asks. “Do go on.”

 

“I think he also wanted to throw it for me, you see,” Lettice elucidates quietly. “To cheer me up. He paid me so much attention when I came home to Glynes after finding out what Lady Zinnia did with Selwyn to break our association.”

 

“Ahh.” Lally remarks, placing a morsel of beef and roast potato mixed with gravy on her tongue. She chews for a few moments, contemplating, before swallowing and continuing, “Well that makes sense. It’s very good of him to do it for you. Then again, you always were his favourite.”

 

“Lally!”

 

“It’s true, Tice,” Lally replies with a shrug of her shoulders. “But I bear no grudge. I was Granny Chetwynd’s favourite. We all have our favourites in life, even if it is prescribed that we aren’t supposed to.”

 

“Well, there was never any love lost between Granny Chetwynd and I. She was always so mean to me, whilst she doted on you, Lally. I think you could have spilt the contents of the whole gravy boat into the lap of a dress she bought you, and she would fuss over you.” Lettice declares. “Whereas if I spilt so much as a drop outside the rim of my plate, she’d loudly threaten to send me back to the nursery for the transgression.”

 

“Yes, I remember that, Tice. She could be horribly cutting with that acerbic tongue.”

 

“What do you mean by it being prescribed that we shouldn’t have favourites, Lally?”

 

“Oh well, as a parent, I’m constantly reminded by my friends not to have a favourite child.”

 

“But you do?” Lettice ventures gently.

 

“Of course, my dear! As my first born, and thankfully heir to appease Lord Lanchenbury, Harrold is my favourite.” A peal of joyful laughter erupts from her lips. “Surely you knew that, Tice.”

 

“No, I didn’t suspect that at all.”

 

“Well, it all evens out,” Lally replies, popping another mouthful of roast into her mouth, before continuing after swallowing, “Because Annabelle is her father’s favourite without question. Isn’t that right, my dear?” She addresses the question to her husband as she nudges him in the ribs with her elbow to get his attention.

 

“What’s that, my love?” Charles asks, leaning over to his wife.

 

“I was just telling Tice that Harrold is my favourite and Annabelle is yours, Charles.”

 

He looks almost apologetically across at Lettice. “I’m afraid it’s true, Tice. I can’t help but have a soft spot for her.”

 

Lettice laughs at her brother-in-law’s face as it softens with love for his daughter. “Whatever will you do, now that you have a third child?” She takes a sip of sparkling champagne.

 

“Oh don’t worry,” Lally pipes up. “Whilst he’s a baby, Tarquin is Nanny’s new favourite, so it all works out rather splendidly.”

 

“Quite splendidly.” agrees Charles. “And who knows, perhaps once he has formed into a forthright young man, he may even please my father enough to become his favourite.”

 

“Now let’s not wish that upon the poor baby.” Lally protests with a laugh.

 

Lettice takes a morsel of roasted potato and allows the delicious flavour to fill her mouth as she looks around her.

 

Her father sits happily at the head of the table in his favourite carver chair, enjoying playing host for his family and extended family, the pleasure clear on his face as he takes a mouthful of roast and washes it down with some red wine from his glass. To the Viscount’s left, Lady Sadie sits, dressed in a fine silk chiné gown of pastel pinks, blues and lilacs, a glass of champagne held daintily to her lips, ropes of pearls gracing her throat and tumbling down her front, as she listens to her favourite child, Leslie. Leslie in turn, the golden child, both figuratively and literally with his sandy blonde Chetwynd hair like Lettice’s, glows in the attention of his mother’s thrall as he talks about his plans for the Glynes estate for 1924.

 

To his left, Leslie’s wife, Arabella focusses upon her own mother, Lady Isobel, next to her. The recent death of Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt has left its mark upon Arabella and Lady Isobel. Both seem somewhat diminished as they lean their heads together, Arabella’s raven waves held with diamond clips at odds to her mother’s white ones, pinned up with pearls and gold. Lettice wonders how soon it will be before Arabella announces that she is pregnant. She knows her parents are most anxious that the pair settle down to start creating a family. On the other side of their mother, the new Lord Tyrwhitt, Nigel, sits quietly paying attention to what Lady Isobel is saying, his solicitousness towards his mother creating a pang in Lettice’s heart. She silently wonders what Nigel’s plans are for the Tyrwhitt Estate that borders that of Glynes. She knows that Nigel is trying valiantly to fill his father’s shoes, but she also knows that he is struggling to do so, particularly in light of how much in debt the new young lord finds himself. What will 1924 have in store?

 

Further down the table beyond an arrangement of Lady Sadie’s best red hothouse roses, Gerald sits. He catches Lettice glancing in his general direction, and he blows her a silent kiss as he winks conspiratorially at her. Unlike Arabella, Lady Isobel and Nigel, 1923 has been a good year for her oldest and dearest childhood chum. His small couturier in Grosvenor Street is finally starting to turn a profit, giving him the independence that he has craved since the end of the Great War, freeing him from the noose of his father’s household’s somewhat straitened financial circumstances. Whilst Gerald’s Grosvenor Street premises might still be furnished with the suite from Bruton House’s drawing room, Lettice feels it will only be a matter of time before she will be designing a new interior for him. Gerald has found new purpose in life, helping his young protégée Harriet Milford to build her millinery business in Putney, whilst at the same time pursuing a romantic interlude with one of Harriet’s boarders, the fey young oboist, Cyril. Whilst Gerald and Cyril must keep their love behind closed doors, shared only with the most trusted coterie of friends like Lettice and Harriet, Lettice is still happy that Gerald has found love at last, even if it is in in middle-class Putney.

 

Next to Gerald, at the foot of the table, his father, Lord Bruton sits, gruffly masticating his roast dinner. Even with his usual growliness, Gerald’s father seems to be in a cheerier mood this evening than Lettice has seen him in as of late. Earlier in the evening, Gerald attributed his good mood to a mixture of Lettice’s father’s largesse with his wine cellar and the successful sale of yet another parcel of the Bruton Estate, the funds raised which are finally being invested in much needed repairs to Bruton Hall’s roof. Whilst Lettice cannot not say that the Brutons have shed themselves of their penurious state of financial affairs, at least this time the money has not been frittered away by Gerald’s elder wastrel of a brother Roland, who sits opposite his brother in a state of ennui that he has no wish to hide from anyone. Doubtless he has an assignation planned with a local girl from the village, Lettice surmises.

 

To Roland’s left, his and Gerald’s mother Lady Gwenyth is also in good cheer as she twitters happily away with Aunt Egg. The two women are such opposites in some ways: Ant Egg’s angular features at odds with the soft jowly folds of Lady Gwenyth, Aunt Egg dressed in the bohemian style of one of her uncorseted Delphos dresses**** – much to the distaste of Lady Sadie – in a rich cherry red that almost matches Lady Sadie’s roses, and Lady Gwenyth arrayed in an old fashioned pre-war high necked gown of fading pastel satin. Yet they have in common the shared experience of a similar timeline, and it seems to bond them together strongly.

 

Next to Aunt Egg, Charles sips champagne quietly as he contemplates what 1924 holds for the Lanchenbury Tea business. Ever since Maison Lyonses****** at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue accepted Lord Lanchenbury’s Georgian Afternoon Tea blend to serve as their own on the beverages menu, he can’t seem to supply enough of the stuff for the tea drinking populace of London. He and Charles are looking to expand the tea export business in India, and already Lally has indicated that Charles will be setting sail for Bombay yet again in the early New Year.

 

And then next to Lettice is her elder sister, Lally. The sisters were once bitter enemies, thanks to some mischievous one-upmanship put in place by their mother, injecting poison into their relationship, but luckily for them they worked out what their mother was about and now Lettice feels closer to Lally than she has ever been.

 

“I say, Tice.” Lally says, breaking into Lettice’s deep contemplations. “Look, I know what Mater suggested you do in Selwyn’s absence.”

 

“You mean getting on with things, or trying to at any rate?” Lettice replies a little downheartedly.

 

“Yes.” Lally replies. “And you’ve done a splendid job of it from what I can gather.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“But you must surely be longing for somewhere quiet just be yourself, broken heart and al, for these next few weeks after Christmas, and New Year.”

 

“Well that’s why I’ve come home to Glynes for Christmas and New Year, Lally. I always use Glynes as a place to retreat to, broken heart or not.”

 

“Yes, but you’ll be under Mater’s watchful eye.”

 

“And Pappa’s caring ministrations.” Lettice adds.

 

“Well, Pater isn’t the only one who can provide caring ministrations, Tice.”

 

“What are you trying to ask, Lally?”

 

“Well, with Charles going back to India with Lord Lanchenbury shortly, I wondered if you wouldn’t care to come and stay with me at Dorrington House for a few weeks. We had such a jolly time of it with the children after Uncle Sherbourne’s funeral, don’t you think?”

 

“Oh!” gasps Lettice, her right hand flying to her mouth. “Oh I’d love to, Lally! Thank you!”

 

“Excellent!” Lally claps her bejewelled hands together. “That settles it then. You’ll come stay with us after we leave here in a few days, and you can just be yourself. If that’s happy then all the better, and I hope that the children and I can create a good distraction for you. However, if you just want some quiet time alone with a change in scenery, then that’s perfectly acceptable too.”

 

“Ahem!” the Viscount clears his throat noisily and having finished his own plate of roast beef and vegetables, rises to his feet, the carver chair legs scraping across the parquet dining room floor shrilly. He taps his empty water glass with his marrow scoop******* “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all for your attention please,”

 

Everyone at the table pauses their conversation and all heads turn to the head of the table.

 

“After a year full of ups and downs,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords, glancing first at Arabella and Lady Isobel, and then at Lettice, who blushes under her father’s concerned gaze. “I would just like to take this opportunity, whilst we are all seated together, to wish everyone here present, a very happy and prosperous nineteen twenty-four. However, since Sadie’s superstitious ideas,” He glances with mock criticism at his wife before reaching out his hand to her, which she takes lovingly. “Won’t allow me to wish you a happy new year until midnight, may I instead wish everyone good health and fortunes.”

 

“Good health and fortunes!” everyone echoes as they raise their glasses and clink them together happily.

 

*After a modest start in 1828 as a smoking room and soon afterwards as a coffee house, Simpson's-in-the-Strand achieved a dual fame, around 1850, for its traditional English food, particularly roast meats, and also as the most important venue in Britain for chess in the Nineteenth Century. Chess ceased to be a feature after Simpson's was bought by the Savoy Hotel group of companies at the end of the Nineteenth Century, but as a purveyor of traditional English food, Simpson's has remained a celebrated dining venue throughout the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First Century. P.G. Wodehouse called it "a restful temple of food"

 

**Nineteenth Century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops, but considerably more extreme. In period literature, "side whiskers" usually refers to this style, in which the whiskers hang well below the jaw line. The classic mutton chop is a type of beard in which the sideburns are grown out to the cheeks, leaving the moustache, soul patch, and chin clean-shaven. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early Twentieth Century. In World War I, in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect moustaches.

 

***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.

 

****Chandelier and candelabra crystals, which can be cut and polished into various shapes and sizes, are called pendalogues, though sometimes it's spelled pendeloques. Some common cuts of pendalogue include: Octagon: has eight sides and features various shapes of facet in tandem.

 

*****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.

 

******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.

 

*******J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.

 

********The marrow scoop was one of a number of utensils designed to serve and eat marrow, the jelly from beef bones. The savoury fattiness of marrow was highly prized and with the refinement of table manners in the Seventeenth Century, new implements evolved for eating it more elegantly. Marrow scoops were made in large numbers in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. In Victorian Edinburgh, for example, enthusiasts met at the Marrow Bone Club and each member had a heavy silver scoop ornamented with marrow bones. The marrow scoop was made in two forms. The first was a single-ended scoop with one narrow channel and a handle; this was easier to hold. The second was the double-ended scoop, where the unequal width of the channel enabled marrow to be extracted from large and small bones. Early pieces were broader and smaller than the elegant, elongated scoops of the mid and late Eighteenth Century. In the next century they were often made to match the rest of the cutlery service.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this festive upper-class country house dinner party scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chippendale dining room table and matching chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

The table is set for a lavish Edwardian dinner party of eight courses when we are just witnessing the fourth course, a meat course, as it is served, using cutlery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious looking roast dinner on the dinner plates, and the boat of gravy on the tabletop have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The red wine glasses bought them from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The white wine glasses I have had since I was a teenager. Also spun from real glass, I acquired them from a high street stockist of doll house and miniature pieces. The three prong candelabra with crystal lustres I acquired from the same shop at the same time. The glasses of champagne are also made from real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The empty champagne flutes, also made of real glass, I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The central hand spun glass bowl containing Lady Sadie's red roses also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, as did all the roses around the room. The two single candelabras are sterling silver artisan miniatures, and came with their own hand made beeswax candles! The silver gravy boat and the cruet set on the table have been made with great attention to detail, and comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. The Christmas garland hanging from it was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. On the mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. A third vase stands on the edge of a bonheur de jour to the left of the photo. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

 

To the left of the photo stands an artisan bonheur de jour (French lady's writing desk). A gift from my Mother when I was in my twenties, she had obtained this beautiful piece from an antique auction. Made in the 1950s of brass it is very heavy. It is set with hand-painted enamel panels featuring Rococo images. Originally part of a larger set featuring a table and chairs, or maybe a settee as well, individual pieces from these hand-painted sets are highly collectable and much sought after. I never knew this until the advent of E-Bay!

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery in the background was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes dining room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

Glengarry Pioneer Museum; Dunvegan, Ontario.

Montreux Biennale 2021

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Warrock Station.Warrock sheep station is fairly typical of most Australia Felix properties (well watered, near a river, taken up by settlers from Launceston, who were also Scots etc.) Warrock near the Glenelg River is ideal for sheep and its origins go back to 1843 when the NSW government was allowing pastoral runs in this region. The original owners from Van Diemen’s Land soon sold to a Scot named George Robertson who took over the run of 11,700 acres in 1844. He had landed at Portland from Launceston. As a former cabinetmaker he spent the next thirty years designing wooden and sometimes brick Gothic style structures for his property. He built 57 wooden and brick structures plus the homestead which he kept enlarging from the original 1844 wooden structure. Thirty-three of the buildings are now heritage listed. Robertson’s cousin took out nearby Wando Vale run which adjoined Edward Henty’s run of Muntham (57,000 acres). (But the Hentys of Portland had other major runs too -Merino Downs, 23,500 acres and Sandford 15,700 acres.) Robertson married a cousin from Wando Vale but they had no children. When George Robertson died in 1890 he left Warrock to a nephew George Patterson. The leasehold of Warrock was converted to freehold in 1872. The Patterson family kept the property until 1992. Not only is this the most amazing sheep station in Australia but it is also the home of the Kelpie breed of sheep dog. The first Kelpie pup recognised as this breed was born on Warrock in the 1870s. Do not miss the brick dog kennels. Nearby Casterton has an annual Kelpie festival and a statue of a Kelpie adorns the entrance to Casterton. The dog is named after the mythological kelpie (horse like or even human like inhabitant of lochs etc) in Scottish folklore. Legend has it that kelpies emerged from the Scotch Collies which were crossbred with dingoes on the station. Kelpies are now famed sheep dogs used around the world.

Kuchnia w jednym kolorze

Płytki ceramiczne, szkło, metal, a może materiał w dokładnie takim samym dekorze jak blat czy szafki kuchenne? Decyzja o tym jaki materiał znajdzie się na kuchennych ścianach między dolnymi i górnymi szafkami, wbrew pozorom nie musi być trudna – nawet gdy zależy nam...

 

www.garazowe.pl/kuchnia-w-jednym-kolorze/2016/

...enjoying a cup of tea....in a cup not used for such a long time...but today the setting just called for it!

....in English classes....We made Christmas ornaments from salted dough, baked orange slices and angels from these magical wrapping papers, bought at Ikea years ago.

Well, the angels will actually be finished in the next week's classes. We need to make their cute, little heads from yarn.

Photo via Living Etc blog.

Inspiration for notes.camillestyles.com/2009/04/26/pie-in-the-sky/

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Go away?”

 

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

 

“Where?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Durban. Durban!” Lettice keeps repeating hollowly.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Pamela?” Lettice asks quietly.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“She’s met a very nice banker’s son.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“But why, Lady Zinnia?”

 

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

 

“A pact?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

To view more of my images, of Sissinghurst Castle & Gardensl, please click "here" !

 

Vita Sackville-West, the poet and writer, began the transforming Sissinghurst Castle in the 1930s with her diplomat and author husband, Harold Nicolson. Harold's architectural planning of the garden rooms, and the colourful, abundant planting in the gardens by Vita, reflect the romance and intimacy of her poems and writings. Sissinghurst Castle was the backdrop for a diverse history; from the astonishing time as a prison in the 1700s, to being a home to the women’s land army. It was also a family home to some fascinating people who lived here or came to stay. Today you can take in the ruined architecture of the extensive original buildings, vast panoramic views from the top of the Tower, the current working farm and the 450-acre wider estate along with Vita and Harold's gardens. Now we're well into our new season there are lots of events for you to enjoy. The National Trust took over the whole of Sissinghurst, its garden, farm and buildings, in 1967. The garden epitomises the English garden of the mid-20th century. It is now very popular and can be crowded in peak holiday periods. In 2009, BBC Four broadcast an eight-part television documentary series called Sissinghurst, describing the house and garden and the attempts by Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven, who are 'Resident Donors', to restore a form of traditional Wealden agriculture to the Castle Farm. Their plan is to use the land to grow ingredients for lunches in the Sissinghurst restaurant. A fuller version of the story can be found in Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008). The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, in England at Sissinghurst village, is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England. Sissinghurst's garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. Sackville-West was a writer on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group who found her greatest popularity in the weekly columns she contributed as gardening correspondent of The Observer, which incidentally—for she never touted it—made her own garden famous. The garden itself is designed as a series of 'rooms', each with a different character of colour and/or theme, the walls being high clipped hedges and many pink brick walls. The rooms and 'doors' are so arranged that, as one enjoys the beauty in a given room, one suddenly discovers a new vista into another part of the garden, making a walk a series of discoveries that keeps leading one into yet another area of the garden. Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new interconnections, while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in the interior of each room exciting. For Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and its garden rooms came to be a poignant and romantic substitute for Knole, reputedly the largest house in Britain, which as the only child of Lionel, the 3rd Lord Sackville she would have inherited had she been a male, but which had passed to her cousin as the male heir. The site is ancient— "hurst" is the Saxon term for an enclosed wood. A manor house with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages. In 1305, King Edward I spent a night here. In 1490, Thomas Baker purchased Sissinghurst. The house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII's Privy Councillors, and greatly enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. In 1573, Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst. Rose arbour in Sissinghurst's White Garden room, which set a fashion for 'white gardens' After the collapse of the Baker family in the late 17th century, the building had many uses: as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years' War; as the workhouse for the Cranbrook Union; after which it became homes for farm labourers. Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930 after concern that their property Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent, was close to development over which they had no control. Although Sissinghurst was derelict, they purchased the ruins and the farm around it and began constructing the garden we know today. The layout by Nicolson and planting by Sackville-West were both strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens; by the earlier Cothay Manor in Somerset, laid out by Nicolson's friend Reginald Cooper, and described by one garden writer as the "Sissinghurst of the West Country"; and by Hidcote Manor Garden, designed and owned by Lawrence Johnston, which Sackville-West helped to preserve. Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.

 

An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many redundant oasts have been converted into houses

Merges design and contemporary requirements in a

harmonic way

I shot this for the Macro Mondays group theme of Wood: 18/03/2013.

 

It's the woodgrain from an old dining room table! I thought the textures looked a bit like a fingerprint!

 

HMM! :)

 

~ FlickrIT ~ Lightbox ~ 500px ~ Google+ ~ Website ~ Blog ~ Etsy ~

Looking for mesh furniture sets of the finest quality but at a reasonable price?

 

Take a look at ONE Passion BED & BEDS 100% original mesh NEW RELEASES entirely created by ONE-Creations:

 

This is the Dining Room set 1.

 

Note that the animations are all by ONE-Creations/ONEbody Language and can be easily adjusted to fit your avatar shape and height .

 

For more details you can visit our main store

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Prints and Greeting Cards: joana-kruse.artistwebsites.com/?tab=artworkgalleries

Kodachrome slide. Note on slide reads "Xmas, 1950 table nl." Slide is part of a set that was bought on eBay.

Photography by David Duncan Livingston (www.studiolivingston.com)

blogged here:

www.mydesignfolder.com/?p=3622

 

....made this picture while the bread was being toasted, on one of this weeks mornings..

 

The sousplas ( placemats, Heather for you dear..yes you guessed right! ) were bought from Habitat for my very first apartment - a small bangalow ( I know I 'll have to scan pictures, as I only got my first digital camera until the next apartment ) and hadn't used them at all....they even had their tags on!

As they are quite large, I fold them for breakfast in the middle and use them full for dinner meals.

Photo from his website: www.thadhayes.com.

Local call number: MP183

 

Title: Dining table set for Thanksgiving dinner - Miami

 

Date: November, 1953

 

Physical descrip: 1 slide - col.

 

Series Title: Miami Photographic Collection

 

Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida, 500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 USA. Contact: 850.245.6700. Archives@dos.state.fl.us

 

Persistent URL: www.floridamemory.com/items/show/323714

 

The Los Angeles - Seattle Coast Starlight is the only Amtrak train that features a separate, elegant lounge car for the sleeping car passengers. Here the dining tables are set up for breakfast service on the second morning of the northbound journey, as the train is stopped at the Dunsmuir, California station stop.

 

January, 2018 Update: Sorry to report that the Pacific Parlour cars will be discontinued in early February. Amtrak cites maintenance expense and safety concerns with the cars.

 

View my collections on flickr here: Collections

For 'messy' eaters. ;-)

I love Ikea displays as I get lots of ideas from them!

Photo by Bill Holt, from House Beautiful: Decorating School.

RM invite only, or please do not select.

Hugs

The 'Provence' Dining room set items from the home show are now available on our marketplace page :)

 

Marketplace Link

 

This is my second picture for the 365 project and the new theme "Still Life".

 

Just a still life with the first xmas decorations found at my dining table.

 

Shot with my Fuji X-E2, this picture is sooc.

Simple clear form

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

 

Today however, we have travelled twenty-five miles west of London into Berkshire to the picturesque town of Ascot, where the Ascot Racecourse is. The town, built up along meandering roads, is made up mostly of large red brick mansions nestled discreetly amidst well established manicured gardens behind trimmed hedges and closed gates. It is here that Lettice is visiting Mrs. Evelyn Hawarden, wife of fabric manufacturer Joseph Hawarden, who hopes to engage Lettice to redecorate ‘The Briars’, a red brick Georgian mansion in Ascot recently acquired by Mr. Hawarden, allowing he and his wife to relocate from Manchester to what they both consider to be a more suitable residence for their newly acquired social standing. Hawarden Fabrics have been embraced by the British public since first appearing on the market in 1919, for their quality and affordability, and have proved especially popular amidst the working classes who want colour and something better than what they have had in the post-war boom of optimism, including Lettice’s maid, Edith, who made her friend Hilda a new dance frock using some Hawarden Fabrics russet art silk*. This has raised the Hawarden’s social expectations.

 

Against her usual practices, Lettice forewent the initial meeting she would usually have had at Cavendish Mews with Mrs. Hawarden after the woman explained that she was simply too busy with her new house to come down to Mayfair, and implored Lettice to consider coming up to Ascot for the day, entreating her with a roast luncheon at the house. Upon arriving at ‘The Briars’, Lettice quickly had her attention drawn to Mrs. Hawarden’s overbearing nature and rather vulgar taste. ‘The Briars’ interiors are made up of the perfect blend of many generations of conscious consumption, culminating in an elegant country house style that others have paid Lettice and other interior designers to create. Yet Mrs. Hawarden seems determined to destroy all that: replacing hand painted Georgian wallpapers with bland oatmeal coloured hangings, disposing if beautiful old paintings in order to hang an expensive, yet uninspiring, modern art collection, and exchanging the soft lines of comfortable country house furnishings with the angular modernity that better suits a compact London flat like Cavendish Mews rather than a Georgian mansion like ‘The Briars’. Whenever Lettice suggested something to the contrary of Mrs. Hawarden, her voice was quickly drowned out by the Mancunian woman’s strident tones, or the loud yapping of her savage pet Pekinese, Yat-See. As she rode the train home to London through the rolling green countryside of Berkshire, Lettice sensed a growing unease as what felt like a boulder began to form in the very pit of her stomach. For the first time in her career as a society interior designer, she had a potential client with whom she was completely at odds with aesthetically. Now, as she takes the train again from Victoria Station to Ascot, that feeling of unease returns and Lettice isn’t quite sure how she is going to explain her difference in opinions and decline the commission of the insistent Mrs. Hawarden.

 

As like the first time she visited, Mrs. Hawarden’s chauffer, dressed in a smart grey uniform and cap, stood ready on the platform to escort her to ‘The Briars’. As the Worsley drove up the long and rutted driveway boarded by clipped yew hedges, Lettice’s feelings of unease only intensified. Her heart sank as the car pulled up before the lovely two-storey red brick Georgian mansion, for there beneath the portico over the front door stood Mrs. Hawarden in her ill-suited tweeds, clutching Yat-See who growled menacingly as Lettice was assisted to alight from the car by the chauffer.

 

Now we find ourselves in the dining room of ‘The Briars’, another lovely room with original Georgian wallpaper and fine furnishings that Mrs. Hawarden has plans for Lettice to redecorate in a more contemporary style. The Hawarden’s maid, Barbara, has set down a splendid roast luncheon before both ladies as they sit either side of the dining table which is set with the dinner service of the previous owner of ‘The Briars’, a widowed lady of gentility and refinement, and a large vase of roses, freshly cut from the garden outside by Mrs. Hawarden herself.

 

“I thought that since you enjoyed Cook’s roast so much last time, I’d have her serve it again.” enthuses Mrs. Hawarden. “And you like Cook’s roast too, don’t you Yat-See.” She addresses her red dioxide coloured Pekingese sitting in her lap lovingly, who in turn ignores his owner and stares fiercely at Lettice through his black button eyes and growls. “Yat-See! Don’t be such a naughty boy towards our guest, or you shan’t get any scraps from Mummy’s plate.”

 

Although Lettice has always loved and grown up with dogs, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, would never have countenanced having any family pet present in the dining room, much less sitting on her lap when she dines, as seems to be Mrs. Hawarden’s habit, considering she did the same when Lettice last visited. Lettice cringes silently as her hostess tears at a stray rag of roast beef on her plate with her red painted fingernails and proceeds to feed it to Yat-See who gulps it down greedily after a mere moment’s deliberation and sniffing.

 

“Ugh,” the Mancunian woman continues as she wipes her greasy fingers on her damask napkin, also belonging to the former occupier of ‘The Briars’. “I cannot wait until this room is no longer bilious yellow.”

 

“You do realise, Mrs. Hawarden, that the papers in here are likely to be near original Georgian hand painted hangings, like those in the drawing room.” Lettice ventures gingerly as she picks up her own cutlery and cuts into a beautifully golden Yorkshire pudding on her plate. “They really are quite inspiring.”

 

“Oh you are too, too droll, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hawarden replies as she laughs loudly. “The only thing that this ghastly paper inspires me to do is throw up.” She laughs loudly again.

 

Lettice shudders at the subject of being sick being raised at the dinner table just as they are about to commence eating.

 

“You know,” continues Mrs. Hawarden as she lifts a large slice of roast beef to her lips. “I was almost beginning to think that you were avoiding me, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

As her hostess envelops the meat between her red painted lips Lettice remembers how upset her maid, Edith, was at having to answer the telephone whenever it rang in case it was Mrs. Hawarden, who had taken to telephoning Cavendish Mews nearly every day, and sometimes several times a day. It became such a problem that Lettice even asked Edith to lie and tell the overbearing woman that she wasn’t at home, even when she was, and on Edith’s day off, she simply didn’t answer the telephone at all, even if it meant that the calls of people she did want to hear from went unanswered.

 

“Then I heard from your maid,” Mrs. Hawarden continues, masticating quite loudly between her rounded northern syllables. “Ada is it?”

 

“Edith.”

 

“That’s it! Edith! Yes, Edith told me your uncle passed on, which of course explained your long absence. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

 

Lettice silently notes the use of the words ‘passed on’, giving away Mr. Hawarden’s aspiring middle-class origins** that she is so desperate to shake off. Politely ignoring it she replies, “Thank you Mrs. Hawarden.”

 

“Was it expected, Miss Chetwynd?” Mrs. Hawarden continues, cutting enthusiastically through a potato she has speared with the tines of her fork.

 

“Actually no. It was quite the opposite, Mrs. Hawarden. It is my Aunt Isobel who has always suffered ill health, so my Uncle’s death was quite unexpected.”

 

“It must have come as quite a shock then.”

 

“Yes, quite.” Lettice replies in a tight-lipped fashion, feeling uncomfortable talking about her private family affairs with a relative stranger.

 

“Well, that’s over now, thankfully, and you’ve probably had plenty of time to think about what I propose to do to ‘The Briars’. I simply cannot wait to hear what your thoughts on redecorating these fusty old fashioned rooms are.”

 

“Well I…” Lettice looks sadly around her at the well appointed and comfortable room, which like the drawing room she was asked to comment on last time, seems perfectly fine as it is in her mind. The room’s décor has grown with the house, mellowed and softened from a formal Georgian interior into a comfortable semi-formal Edwardian country house interior over the decades since its original construction. The queasiness roiling in the pit of her stomach makes the light piece of Yorkshire pudding she has just swallowed feel like a stone rolling about. Yat-See seems to pick up on her hesitancy and quietly growls at Lettice again from across the table.

 

“Yat-See!” scolds Mrs, Hawarden as she taps his head lightly. “Now, now Miss Chetwynd, there is no need to be shy.” She chortles. “I know you’re a modern designer.”

 

“A Modern Classical Revival interior designer, actually,” Lettice corrects her hostess. “As you may recall, Mrs. Hawarden.”

 

“Well it’s the modern I’m more interested in rather than the classical, Miss Chetwynd. The more modern the better.”

 

Stalling for time, Lettice looks again around the room and it is then that she notices a new painting hanging over the sideboard on which stand the roast, some lidded tureens of vegetables, bottles of champagne and a vase of red roses. Enclosed in an ornate gilded frame, the painting hangs in place of a rather dark, but charming Victorian English oil of a local landscape, and could not be any more at odds with the rest of the room’s décor. Looking out from the frame, an angular shepherdess dressed in pale pink toying with her equally pink crook lolls against a young man in red pantaloons and white stockings reading from a book which only covers part of his bulging chest which is revealed through an open shirt executed in a mustard colour. The pair sit on a stylised bank of grass dotted with flowers, whilst behind them an equally stylised sky of blue littered with fluffy clouds drifts by. Whilst not an unpleasant painting within itself, and obviously well executed by the artist, it nonetheless looks so awkward and incredibly out of place hanging between an Edwardian watercolour of London and another country scene painted in oils, and against the yellow and white foliate wallpaper of the Eighteenth Century.

 

Noticing her eyes focussing on the painting, Mrs. Hawarden follows Lettice’s gaze. “Oh, were you just admiring my new acquisition, Miss Chetwynd?” she asks with swelling pride. “Isn’t it divine? Bucolic charm meets modernity! I just had it shipped from the Forsythe Gallery, a most darling little place in Soho, this week. I don’t think the owner wanted to part with it, but a nice fat cheque from Mr. Hawarden soon put short shrift to that attitude.”

 

Lettice suddenly smiles in a bemused fashion as the sick feeling in her stomach begins to lessen as an idea forms in her mind.

 

Having not observed the change in Lettice’s attitude, the Mancunian woman goes on unabated, “I think it’s so much nicer than that awful daub that was hanging there before. Do you remember it, Miss Chetwynd? It was a rather dark painting of a mill and an Oxford hay wagon***.”

 

“Yes, I remember it Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies, the smile creeping a little further across her lips. “It was quite charming as I recall it.”

 

“Charming? You thought it was charming, Miss Chetwynd?” the older woman asks with a hesitancy in her voice, self-consciously reaching up to the strings of pearls about her neck and worrying them with her fingers as she looks to Lettice.

 

“Why yes, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies, her voice becoming a little more bold. “Where did you hang it instead?”

 

“Hang it?” Mrs. Hawarden stutters in shocked reply. “Why no-where, Miss Chetwynd. I gave it to Barbara to put in the dustbin, but I suspect she has taken a fancy to it and probably took it home to her family.”

 

“Oh, that is a pity, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice says. “I much prefer it to your new painting. Your new painting can’t possibly stay in here. It really won’t suit.”

 

“It… it won’t, Miss Chetwynd?” stammers Mrs. Hawarden in surprise.

 

“Oh no!” Lettice exclaims, shaking her head. “I’ll find something more classically suitable, Mrs. Hawarden. Leave it to me.”

 

“Well, Miss Chetwynd, if you will recall, it’s modern that I’m really looking to capitalise on in our new designs for the drawing room, dining room and entrance hall, not classical. Now, whilst we are thinking of paintings,” she adds in a quavering voice quickly in an effort to stop Lettice saying anything further to disquiet her. “I was actually hoping you might be able to get me some paintings from the Portland Gallery in Bond Street, Miss Chetwynd. ”

 

Mrs. Hawarden’s protestations drift away in Lettice’s mind as she thinks back to the conversation she had with her sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) at her Buckinghamshire home the week beforehand during a stay to keep her sister company for a few days after their ‘Uncle’, Lord Sherbourne Tyrwhitt’s funeral, whilst Lally’s husband and children were away. The subject of declining to accept Mrs. Hawarden’s commission to decorate ‘The Briars’ came up on conversation over a luncheon of pork pie and potato au gratin. Lettice had expressed her concerns over how she is going to explain her difference in opinions to the insistent Mrs. Hawarden and thereby decline her patronage. Lally suggested a ploy successfully used by her husband and father-in-law. “Show her that she is too modern for you, and convince her that you are too classical and old fashioned for her. Once the doubt is planted in her mind, it will quickly take root.” was her sage advice. Lettice felt the idea had merit, but it wasn’t until she saw Mrs. Hawarden’s latest artistic acquisition that she worked out a way to plant that seed of doubt in her woman’s mind. Now with every answer she gives, Lettice can hear the doubt growing in Mrs. Hawarden’s voice.

 

“Oh the Portland gallery isn’t my preference for art, Mrs. Hawarden,” Lettice replies sweetly, slicing through the beef on her plate.

 

“It.. it isn’t, Miss Chetwynd?” Mrs. Hawarden queries. “But I read in the Country Life**** that you used statues from the Portland Gallery.”

 

“Oh those?” Lettice says with a sheepish laugh. “Yes, well, they were Mr. Channon’s already you see. He was the one who specifically wanted to use the gallery for those art pieces, so it really was his doing, not mine. The Portland Gallery is a bit too modern for my tastes, Mrs. Hawarden. I can however see how Mr. Tipping’s***** article may have inadvertently misled you in thinking that it was my choice.”

 

“Yes, well…” gulps the older woman awkwardly as the colour starts to drain from her face. “I… I was rather hoping that you might be able to give me a foray into the Portland Gallery, Miss Chetwynd.”

 

“Well,” Lettice says as she raises a small morsel of meat to her lips. “That would really be up to Mr. Chilvers, the owner, Mrs. Hawarden, not me. Perhaps if you spoke to Mr. Chilvers.” she adds helpfully with a gentle smile before taking the mouthful from her fork.

 

“I did try that, Miss Chetwynd, but he did seem awfully pressed for time.” the older woman replies, making up excuses, blushing as she speaks.

 

“Well, never mind. I have some lovely Regency bronzes I’m sure you will like, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice replies after swallowing her mouthful. She picks up her glass of champagne. “Of course, you will have to come down to London and visit my warehouse. Then I can show you some of the pieces I had in mind to install here as part of the redecoration.”

 

Yat-See starts growling again, barring his sharp little white teeth, and staring at her with hostility with his sparking currant eyes, but for the first time Lettice doesn’t feel intimidated by him. Unusually, Mrs. Hawarden doesn’t tell him off for growling.

 

“I say, are you feeling alright, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice asks, placing her knife and fork against the gilt edge of her plate. “You do look a little pale all of a sudden.”

 

“Oh, do I, Miss Chetwynd?” the older woman replies, putting her hands to her cheeks.

 

The pair fall into an awkward silence, broken only by the muffled ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway outside the open dining room door and the occasional twitter of birds in the garden beyond the sash window. Neither eat any more of their roast beef luncheon, which slowly grows cold and congeals on their plates.

 

“I say,” Mrs. Hawarden says at length, breaking the silence. “I must confess that I am feeling a little unwell all of a sudden, Miss Chetwynd. Would you mind terribly if I went upstairs and laid down.” She snatches Yat-See from her lap as she abruptly stands up, her Georgian dining chair’s feet juddering across the well-worn carpet beneath her.

 

“Oh yes!” Lettice rises to her feet also. “Yes of course, Mrs. Hawarden.”

 

“Barbara can show you out after you’ve had your luncheon and arrange for Johnston to return you to the railway station. I feel like a terrible hostess, but I really feel that I must go and lie down. I have a history of awful, debilitating headaches that can come on quite suddenly.” she lies as she thinks of an excuse to leave and reconsider her choice of interior designer.

 

“Shall I call Barbara to see you to your room, Mrs. Hawarden?” Lettice moves towards the servants bell next to the fireplace.

 

“No, please don’t bother, Miss Chetwynd.” She hoists the somewhat startled Yat-See up underneath her right arm like a clutch purse. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“Well then, I will bid you a good afternoon, Mrs. Hawarden.” Lettice says pleasantly.

 

“Yes, goodbye Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hawarden replies very definitely.

 

Lettice watches as her hostess retreats through the dining room door with her dog and disappears. As her footsteps dissipate along the corridor and then up some stairs at the end of it, Lettice lets out a pent-up breath in relief as she takes to her seat again. She feels the house settle back comfortably around her, as like her hostess, the awkward tension leaves the room. It appears that thanks to Lally’s sage advice, Lettice has narrowly avoided the calamity of having to decorate the beautiful rooms of ‘The Briars’ against her own tasteful wishes. She glances about her once more at the elegantly appointed room. “Well, I’ve given you a stay of execution, my beauty.” she says to the empty room quietly. “I don’t quite know how long for, but at least your death knell will not come under my watch.”

 

Lettice rises again and depositing her serviette onto the polished tabletop next to her half-eaten luncheon, she walks across the room and rings the servants bell.

 

As Barbara helps Lettice on with her russet coloured travelling coat in the house’s vestibule she quietly asks, “Will we be seeing you again soon, Miss Chetwynd?”

 

“No,” Lettice replies as her lips, artfully reapplied with some lipstick matching the hue of her coat, grow into an exaggerated oval as she takes one final look lovingly around the cluttered hallway of ‘The Briers’. “I don’t think you will ever see me again, Barbara.”

 

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Chetwynd.” Barbara replies, handing Lettice her hook ended russet satin parasol. “But at the same time, I’ll be glad to see the house left alone. I quite like it as it is.”

 

“So do I, Barbara,” Lettice says with a consoling smile. “So do I.”

 

“Well, goodbye then, Miss Chetwynd, and a safe journey back to London.”

 

“Goodbye Barbara.” Lettice replies.

 

Then she steps across the threshold of the house and with the confident footsteps of the daughter of a Viscount, Lettice strides across the crunching white gravel driveway and allows herself to be helped into the purring Worsley waiting outside by Johnston its chauffer. As he closes the door behind her, Lettice settles into the leather upholstery and takes one last look through the door’s glass pane at lovely two-storey red brick Georgian mansion with two white painted sash windows either side of a porticoed front door and five matching windows spread evenly across the façade of the upper floor. “May you rest in unaltered tranquillity, Briars.” she says quietly.

 

With a rev of its engines, Johnston turns the steering wheel of the Worsley as it slowly begins its journey back down the rutted driveway and out into the township of Ascot, bound for the railway station.

 

*The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fibre and marketed as art silk or viscose, a trade name for a specific manufacturer. In 1924, the name of the fibre was officially changed in the U.S. to rayon, although the term viscose continued to be used in Europe.

 

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

 

***An ‘Oxford’ hay wagon was a type of cart with an elegant arch over the rear wheels and were often painted canary yellow like many gypsy caravans. They began appearing in Buckinghamshire, over an area from the Thames to beyond Banbury. As well as being known as an ‘Oxford’ hay wagon, it collected a variety of names, including: Cotswold, Woodstock and South Midland hay wagon.

 

****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.

 

*****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.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house dining room scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chippendale dining room table, matching dining and carver chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

The dining table is correctly set for a two course Edwardian inter-war luncheon, using cutlery and crockery, from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. The delicious looking roast dinner on the dinner plates and on the console in the background have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The two glasses of sparkling champagne are made of real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All the wine and water glasses I have had since I was a teenager. I bought them from a high street stockist that specialised in dolls’ houses and doll house miniatures. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The Georgian style candlesticks are artisan pieces made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the pieces was made in England by an unknown artist.

 

The sideboard featuring fine marquetry banding and collapsible extensions at either end was made by an unknown miniature artisan. This piece I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The Georgian style silver lidded tureens, wine cooler and three prong candelabra on the sideboard’s surface I also acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The bottles of Deutz and Geldermann and De Rochegré champagne in the cooler are artisan miniatures and made of glass and some have real foil wrapped around their necks. They are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

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 three paintings on the wall came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s. The Georgian style silk carpet comes from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

Photo by Simon Upton.

Diningtable

Maxine taking some quiet time on one of the dining chairs.