View allAll Photos Tagged spongecake
Indoor market.
Settle Victoria Hall.
Settle, Yorkshire.
On the table: yummy looking food; egg mayo buns, cheese buns, fruit scones, cheese scones, lemon cake, sponge cake, apple pie and chocolate cake.
Settle Victoria Hall was opened on 11 October 1853, and has been open and at the heart of Settle’s social and cultural life ever since. At 165 years old, it predates the Settle-Carlisle railway by thirteen years, Wiltons' Music Hall in London by five years, and is the oldest surviving Music Hall in the world.
This gorgeous beautiful Swiss roll that I made I didn't do it properly so the bread cracked -,w,- the rolling is required with a kitchen cloth or a parchment paper. And I guess when I did the cloth I didn't tighten it good enough. Also it could be refrigeration temperature.
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 a short distance west from Cavendish Mews, skirting Hyde Park, around Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge past the Brompton Road and Harrods with its ornate terracotta façade, past the great round Roman amphitheatre inspired Royal Albert Hall that was built in honour of Queen Victoria’s late husband prince Albert in 1861, past Kensington Palace, to Holland Park. It is here, in a cream painted stucco three storey Nineteenth Century townhouse with a wrought and cast iron glazed canopy over the steps and front door, flanked by two storey canted bay windows to each side with Corinthian pilasters, that we find ourselves. Lettice and her mother, Lady Sadie, have come to the elegant and gracious home of her widowed future sister-in-law, Clementine (known preferably now by the more cosmopolitan Clemance) Pontefract.
Lettice is engaged to Clemance’s elder brother, Sir John Nettleford Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John, according to London society gossip enjoys dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Although she did not become engaged to him then, Lettice did reacquaint herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by mutual friends Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate in 1924. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again later that year at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. When Lettice’s understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, fell apart, Lettice agreed to Sir John’s proposal.
Now, some seven months on, plans are starting to be laid for the wedding, albeit at a somewhat glacial pace. On an earlier visit to Clemance, when Lettice and Sir John were taking tea with his younger sister, Lettice suggested that Clemance might help her choose her trousseau*. Thinking that Lady Sadie’s ideas will doubtless be somewhat old fashioned and conservative when it comes to commissioning evening dresses and her wedding frock, Lettice wants to engage Clemance’s smart and fashion conscious eye and eager willingness to please Lettice as her future sister-in-law to help her pick the trousseau she really wants. Knowing that the subject would be difficult to discuss with her mother, with whom she has a somewhat fraught relationship, she decided to approach Lady Sadie face-to-face. Unsurprisingly, Lady Sadie did not take kindly to the suggestion, any more than she did the idea that Lord Bruton’s son, Gerald, Lettice’s oldest childhood chum and best friend, who designs gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street, making Lettice’s wedding frock. In the end, Lady Sadie wouldn’t countenance the idea of Gerald making Lettice’s gown, since she felt it would be embarrassing for her youngest daughter to appear in a frock made by the son of her family friend and neighbours, Lord and Lady Bruton, as well as have Gerald as a guest at the wedding. Appealing to her father, Viscount Wrexham, to help her, being his favourite child, Lettice disclosed a secret shared with her by Sir John about his sister, indicating why she has taken such a keen interest in being involved in Lettice’s wedding plans. Clemance had a daughter born the same year as Lettice, that she and her husband lost to diphtheria when the child was twelve. Upon hearing this revelation, the Viscount agreed to talk to Lady Sadie and try and sway her to allow Clemance to be involved in the acquiring of Lettice’s trousseau, a task that is usually the preserve of the bride and her mother, but made no promises. In the end, Lady Sadie acquiesced, albeit begrudgingly, and only under the proviso that she should meet Clemance and vet her suitability for herself.
So Clemance has arranged a sumptuous afternoon tea for Lettice and Lady Sadie at her elegant Holland Park home. Clemance’s drawing room is elegantly appointed with the comfortable Edwardian clutter of her continual and conspicuous acquisition, not dissimilar to the décor of Lady Sadie’s preserve, the morning room at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire. Being of a similar age to Lady Sadie, Clemance’s conspicuous collecting is the hallmark of a lady of her age and social standing. Clusters of floral chintz chairs and sofas are placed around the room in small conversational clutches, whilst elegant French antiques, collected by her and her late husband Harrison during their years living in France, stand around the walls. The room is papered in pale pink Georgian style wallpaper and hung with Eighteenth Century pastoral scenes in gilded frames, whilst the floor is parquet. The room smells of freshly arranged hothouse flowers, and Josette, Clemance’s beloved canary twitters in her cage on the pillar table next to Clemance’s chair.
Clemance fusses of Josette and takes some seeds from a small silver container and deposits some into the bottom of Josette’s cage, tutting at her, whilst Lettice, sitting on the long and low chaise lounge, leans forward and tops up her mother’s teacup with some fresh tea.
“Thank you, Lettice my dear.” Lady Sadie says a little stiffly.
Mother and daughter have had an uncomfortable morning visiting Reville and Rossiter, the Court dressmaker in Hanover Square where once again they have differed over Lettice’s flair and love of the new and exciting modern styles from Paris, which is at odds with Lady Sadie’s more conservative and old-fashioned sensibilities, which are more pre-war in style.
Lady Sadie tuts quietly, shaking her head as she watches Clemance fussing over Josette, drawing the hostess’ attention to Lady Sadie’s quiet admonishment.
“You don’t approve of birds in cages then, I take it, Lady Chetwynd.” Clemance asks, turning her attention away from her beloved bird and back to her guests. “Thank you, dear.” she says as she accepts her filled cup of tea from Lettice, who smiles politely as she does.
“I’m afraid I don’t, Mrs. Pontefract.” Lady Sadie admits. “I’m a country girl at heart, and I believe all birds should be out in nature, flitting across the fields and making nests in the hedgerows.”
“I doubt you will find any fields, or hedgerows, within a mile of here, Lady Chetwynd.” Clemance opines.
“No, but there are large parks not far from here at all.” Lady Sadie replies. “Please pardon me for saying this and being so frank, Mrs. Pontefract, but I think having birds in cages is cruel.”
“Mamma!” Lettice gasps, pausing mid pour into her own teacup. “Josette is very precious to Clemance. And once Josette is a bit more settled here in Holland Park, she intends to let Josette out of her cage and fly around freely about the room, like she did with her in her apartment in Paris. Aren’t you, Clemance?”
“I am.” Clemance confirms. “However your mother is entitled to opinion, Lettice my dear, just as I am entitled to mine and you to yours. I can see your point of view, Lady Chetwynd.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pontefract.” Lady Sadie replies gratefully. Turning to her daughter she adds, staring at her sharply, “You see Lettice. I’m not always wrong.”
Lettice doesn’t reply, but resumes pouring herself some fresh tea and then takes a slice of chocolate sponge lavished with cream and fresh strawberries from the platter on the central low coffee table.
“You don’t live in Belgravia, with your brother, Mrs. Pontefract?” lady Sadie goes on, steering the conversation to a more neutral and safer topic.
“You know, since we are to be family soon, you must call me Clemance.” Clemance says kindly, looking over at Lady Sadie and smiling broadly.
“Well,” Lady Sadie’s face crumples up with discomfort at the familiarity.
“And may I call you Sadie?” Clemance seeks permission. “You calling me Mrs. Pontefract and me calling you Lady Chetwynd, well, it really is too formal for family, don’t you think?”
Lady Sadie swallows the lump in her throat somewhat awkwardly. “Very well, Mrs. Pon… Clemance.” she manages in a strangulated tone.
“Good.” Clemance says, nodding her approval, making her pearl drop earrings dangling from her lobes jiggle about. “ Well now that that’s settled, going back to your question, Sadie, I’ve lived abroad, apart from my brother for too many years now to live under the same room as him, even in his spacious Belgravia townhouse. I’m too independent. Besides, he has his own life, and will forge one with Lettice soon,” She nods in Lettice’s direction and smiles at the girl warmly, so she doesn’t notice Lady Sadie shudder at the mention of the forthcoming nuptials*** between Sir John and Lettice. “I would only get under foot.”
“Nonsense, Clemance!” Lettice insists. “How could you ever get under anyone’s feet.”
“Oh that’s kind of you dear.” She reaches out her older, wrinkled hand and squeezes Lettice’s dainty youthful one in it comfortingly. “But you know it’s true. There is no place for an old widow like me in a newlywed’s nest.” Returni g her attentions to Lady Sadie, Clemance goes on, “Besides, I prefer Holland Park, even if it is not so salubrious a neighbourhood as Belgravia. I find as I grow older, I want less to do with the London social round. It’s much more for the young, like Lettice here: all those balls, Cowes, the Henly Regatta and the like.”
“I feel the same Mrs. err… Clemance.” Lady Sadie replies. “I find I rarely come up to London anymore.”
“But you have a townhouse in Fitzroy Square****, do you not, Sadie?”
“Yes, a few doors down from my cousin Gwendolyn, the Duchess of Whitby.” Clemance nods in acknowledgement of Lady Sadie’s well-known and social cousin. “But I seldom use it. It requires opening it up, and then there is the question of finding good help in London. I can bring my lady’s maid, Ward, from Glynes, as I have done for this trip, but I can’t deplete the house completely of servants, so I get by with the basic assistance of the caretaker and his wife. If the Viscount and I have to come up for a longer period, I bring up a small coterie of staff from Wiltshire and then use a domestic agency to plug any gaps, but that requires so much time and effort. When my husband and I were younger, oh!” She chortles as she remembers her early married life with Cosmo. “We used to use Fitzroy Square all the time. It was a house bedazzled by gay parties and balls as we participated in the London social round. However, the lustre of the place has gone now. I much prefer the country. There is a sense of permanence and peace I get at Glynes that I don’t here. London is always changing now, and at such a rapid pace! One day a house I remember as always being there is gone, and the next it has been replaced by one of those blocks of mansion flats***** such as Lettice and her fashionable friends live in nowadays. The old traditions are gone here, but may still be found in the country. No, we haven’t really used it very much since the war, except for Lettice’s coming out in that first Season after the war and the Spanish Influenza in 1920 when things really recommenced, of course.”
“Of course.” Clemance acknowledges, sipping her tea.
“I also happen to think that something has changed in me, with the war. I never felt comfortable in London again. Perhaps it was those zeppelin raids******, which upset my nerves terribly. Even to this day, I still can’t help but look up at the sky when I’m here in London and I hear an aeroplane.” She holds out one of her hands to show it quivering slightly even at the thought. “And London is a young people’s city. What is it the papers call the young people now?”
“The Bright Young People or Bright Young Things, I think Sadie.”
“That’s it! The Bright Young Things, of course!” Lady Sadie claps her hands. “How clever of you… Clemance. Well, London is theirs now, not ours, or perhaps I should say mine, since you seem quite at home here. For me, London is busier, more frenetic, faster paced: not like the London of hansom cabs and strolls through parks like Cosmo and I enjoyed in our youth. There’s no room for an old woman like me.” She laughs. “Do you know, on the way here today in a taxi, Lettice and I saw a double decker London red motorbus with an enclosed top*******? I remember when such conveyances were single storey and drawn by horses!”
“As do I, Sadie.” Clemence confirms with a nod. “As do I.”
“But of course you have been living abroad for some years now, Clemance, so London would be very different for you anyway. You were Paris I believe? That’s what Lettice told me.”
“Yes for the most part of the last two decades, except during the war years, when my husband and I lived in Switzerland.”
“And I believe your husband died, not all that long ago, Clemance. My condolences.”
“Thank you, Sadie. That’s why I returned to London after all this time, so I could be closer to my brother, although,” Clemance adds as an afterthought. “Not living out of his pocket as it were.”
Clemance glances down at her coffee table. “Lettice,” she asks her future sister-in-law.
“Hhhmmm?” Lettice replies.
“Would you run upstairs to my dressing room. I think I left some magazines of the latest wedding fashions from Paris that I wanted to show you and your mother whilst you are here. You should find a few of copies of ********Le Petit Écho de la Mode. My dressing room is the first door on the left.”
“Of course, Clemance.” Lettice says, picking herself up out of the comfortable corner of Clemance’s pillow and bolster covered floral chaise. She turns and walks from the room.
“Good!” Clemance says with a relieved sigh as she listens to Lettice’s footfalls fading on the staircase in the hallway outside the door. “Now that we’re alone, Sadie, I really think that I should explain.”
“Explain… Clemance?” Lady Sadie queries with a slight twist of her head and an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, explain why I’ve come blundering into the middle of your wedding plans like an elephant with a broken toe. I know that the bride’s trousseau and various other tasks are the preserve, the duty, of the bride’s mother.” Clemance looks across at Lady Sadie with some embarrassment. “I didn’t want to do it. I think they were just being kind.”
“They?”
“My brother and your daughter. You see it was Lettice who approached me about being involved in the picking out of her trousseau, not the other way around. I expressed my reservations of course, from the very beginning. I thought it might cause ructions if I participated. I was thinking of your feelings.”
“Oh, not at all, Clemance.” Lady Sadie replies with a dismissive wave of her bejewelled hand. “That’s very kind of you. Please, don’t mention it. I’ll be glad of your assistance, since I don’t much enjoy coming up to London these days. Besides, if you have copies of the latest editions of Le Petit Écho de la Mode, you must have your pulse on the current trends, unlike tweedy old county me.”
“It’s very kind of you to lie, Sadie, but I know that my presence must have come as something of a shock.”
“Well, I won’t deny that.” Lady Sadie admits.
“I did try to dissuade Lettice of the idea initially,” Clemance says in an embarrassed fashion, turning her head away from Lady Sadie and fussing and cooing over Josette. “But Nettie…”
“Nettie?”
“Oh sorry!” Clemance replies, turning back, growing red in the face as she becomes flustered. “Nettie is my pet name for my brother. John… John was rather insistent that I should have a certain level of involvement in Lettice’s side of the wedding plans, so that I wouldn’t miss out, you see.”
“Miss out, Mrs… err… Clemance? No, sorry. I don’t see.”
“As I intimated before, after my husband died suddenly, I decided to return here to London so I could be closer to John. He’s the only family I have left now. However, without a husband, and with no real friends here, I’ve been at rather a loose end ever since I arrived, and I’m too apt to brood.”
“Brood? About what?”
Clemance doesn’t answer straight away, but looks down into her lap where she twists her diamond ring decorated hands in a rather distracted way.
“You see, I… I had a daughter too, once.” she finally admits. “Oh and please don’t tell Lettice!” She looks at Lady Sadie imploringly. “I don’t want to upset her before the wedding, but being family she will find out at some stage anyway, whether it be from me of Nettie.”
“Very well. I won’t.” Lady Sadie assures her, lying and keeping a straight face so as not to betray the fact that Lettice is well aware of Clemance’s dead daughter from a confidence placed in her by Sir John, and has confided this secret with both the Viscount and Lady Sadie herself. “Please, go on, Clemance.”
Clemance’s breathing becomes more laboured as she tries to maintain her composure. “Elise was Harrison’s and my only child. Sadly, although we had been trying for some years before she was born, and again after, we were never blessed with more children. In truth, I think at my age, by the time Harrison and I finally married, I was probably moving beyond my real childbearing years, so we were lucky to have Elise at all. You may have noticed a portrait of me with a little girl in the hallway when you first arrived.”
“Yes,” Lady Sadie admits. “It’s very lovely.”
“Well that is… or rather was… Elise.” Clemance gulps. “She… she died you see, of diphtheria, when she was ten. There was nothing we could do, even with the very best medical care we could provide. She just couldn’t breathe, and in the end,” Tears well in Clemance’s eyes and she withdraws a lace handkerchief from the pocket of her pale pink silk cardigan, bringing it up to her nose daintily. “Her little heart just gave out.”
“Oh please, Clemance,” Lady Sadie says kindly, her own voice strangulated with emotion. “Don’t go on.” She holds up her hand. “Recalling it must be so painful for you.”
“I have to, Sadie. It’s a part of me, and…” Clemance sobs. “And I have to tell you now… whilst I have the strength to do so.”
Lady Sadie nods shallowly as she withdraws her own lace handkerchief from her beaded and crocheted reticule and dabs her eyes which well with her own tears for Clemance and for herself, having lost two of her own children to stillbirths.
“You see, Elise would have been around Lettice’s age,” Clemance releases a shuddering sigh. “And I think that… out of a sense of loyalty to me, and in an attempt to be kind, John pressured Lettice into asking me to be involved, so that I wouldn’t miss out on having a chance to help a young lady choose the wardrobe for her married life.” She sobs again and dabs her eyes quickly with her handkerchief.
“I understand.” Lady Sadie replies softly. “I lost two of my own children, one after my eldest son was born, and one before my youngest son was born: a boy and a girl.”
“So you know what it is like to lose a child.” Clemance breathes in relief.
“I do, but I was blessed with four healthy children who survived and grew into adulthood, which goes some way to assuaging the loss of my two lost babbies.”
Clemance sniffs. “In some ways, I rather wish John hadn’t been the sweet and kind brother that he is to me, forcing me blundering into your plans. It’s unfair for me to be foisted upon you.”
“You aren’t being foisted upon me, Mrs… Clemance.”
“It’s alright. I understand. I know am an imposition. Yet…” She shudders with heartache. “Yet… it’s the most wonderful opportunity for me to experience something… well never thought I would after Elise… died.”
“However?” Lady Sadie asks the unspoken question to get Clemance to finish her thought.
“However, I know it’s all smoke and mirrors.” Clemance blinks through tears that run in silent rivulets down her cheeks. “Lettice is not my daughter. She’s my future sister-in-law.” Clemance sniffs, dabs at her eyes again and sits up more stiffly in her armchair. “Anyway, I just thought I should explain myself to you, whilst Lettice is not here.” She sniffs and breathes deeply. “You… you don’t have to involve me in your shopping expeditions with your daughter, Sadie. I know it’s a special time for the two of you. I would never want to intrude.”
Lady Sadie does not answer immediately, and takes a moment to compose herself. She looks at Clemance and considers her. “You aren’t intruding, Clemance. Of course you must be involved.”
“Really, Sadie?”
Lady Sadie nods shallowly. “You’ve been living in the fashion capital of the world up until recently. I’d welcome your opinion on the latest fashions, so we must organise some shopping expeditions down Motcomb Street********* for the three of us.”
“Oh thank you, Sadie.” Clemance exclaims, clasping her hands together in delight, smiling brightly through her tears. “I’m so grateful. Of course I will demur to any final decisions you make.”
“Naturally.” Lady Sadie agrees with a curt nod.
“Although I do have one suggestion, if you will be so good as to indulge me, Sadie.”
Lady Sadie looks warily at Clemance, unsure if she wants to hear what is coming next.
“I know you are rather wedded… err… no pun intended,” Clemance begins awkwardly. “To Madame Handley-Seymour********** and a few other of the more… traditional Court dressmakers for Lettice’s wedding frock.”
“No final decisions have been made… yet.” Lady Sadie replies guardedly. “Lettice and I are still… exploring.”
“Oh that’s a relief, Sadie.” Clemance sighs. “You see, I really do think you should let Lettice have her way with it, and allow Gerald Bruton to design it. He really is quite brilliant you know.”
“Are you suggesting that my choice in Madame Handley-Seymour, the dressmaker chosen by the Duchess of York*********** for her wedding dress, a couturier approved by Queen Mary herself, is unsuitable to make my daughter’s wedding dress?”
“No… no of course not, Sadie!” Clemance quickly defends herself. “It’s just that Lettice has her heart so set on it, and she is quite right, he’s been making her beautiful frocks for the last few years now, and he does know her figure intimately.” As soon as she utters the word, Clemance knows she has miss-stepped. “That is to say… err… I mean…”
“Yes, well!” quips Lady Sadie curtly, cutting Clemance off abruptly, her eyebrows arching over her sapphire chip sparkling eyes. “I already have my concerns about that. It seems most inappropriate that Gerald should be so familiar with Lettice’s figure.”
“Gerald?” Clemance chuckles deeply. “Surely you jest, Sadie!”
“They aren’t three years old any more, sharing a tub in front of the nursery fire. With Nanny” retorts Lady Sadie crisply, her mouth crumpling in disapproval.
“But Gerald’s harmless! It’s just business to him: fact and figures on a page. Surely you know that, Sadie?”
“Harrumph!” Lady Sadie snorts haughtily. “It’s the figure I worry about: Lettice’s I mean, not to mention her reputation. Being seen by him in her undergarments! It’s shameful! There is such a thing as propriety,” She pauses. “Even though I know with social mores being what they are in this modern age, it is out of style with these Bright Young People who lack any morals.”
“Dear Gerald is really quite harmless, dear Sadie!” Clemance assures her with a gentle smile. “Besides, Lettice tells me that your own wedding dress was made by Charles Frederick Worth************.”
“Mr. Worth was far older than Gerald is when I was fitted for my wedding day, Clemance, and he was married with a family, unlike Gerald who is still conspicuously single in this day and age when marriageable young men are few and far between.”
“You’ve never suspected that there is a reason for that, Sadie?” Clemance says, her voice heavy with implication.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Clemance. It’s never escaped my attention how much of a torch Gerald Bruton holds************* for my youngest daughter. Don’t think it hasn’t gone unnoticed that he and Lettice are within one another’s pockets up here in London whilst I and my husband Gerald’s parents are nicely tucked out of the way in quiet old Wiltshire. I have eyes! I can see! I see them together, smiling, in the social pages, as I read about the latest shenanigans that they have gotten up to with their young friends over my breakfast tray**************.”
“Oh dear!” Clemance gasps.
“Oh dear, what?”
“You really have no idea about Gerald, do you, Sadie?”
“Gerald Bruton is a churlish young man who is bitter, and he is a bad influence on my youngest daughter. He said the most unspeakable things to me when he was tight*************** on my husband’s best French champagne at the Hunt Ball I threw for Lettice in 1922.”
“What on earth could dear Gerald say that would upset you so, Sadie? He’s sun an inoffensive and gentlemanly young man.”
“You may think so, Clemance, but I know otherwise!” Lady Sadie beats her chest. “He told me that I was a silly old woman, meddling in my own daughter’s affairs of the heart. All I did was guide Selwyn Spencely and Lettice together. Is it wrong that I should want the best for my daughter?”
Clemance suddenly feels a visceral need to leap to her brother’s defence, the emotion overriding her feeling of self pity over the loss of Elise, pushing it momentarily from her mind as she sees red. “And so she is, Sadie!” Clemance spits angrily. “My brother is far superior to Selwyn Spencely, whom, from what I can gather, is completely under his harridan of mother’s thumb, has no backbone and no moral conscience. In short, he is a cad! John is superior to him in every way. And the Nettleford-Hughes fortune far exceeds that of the Dukes of Walmsford.”
“Oh!” Lady Sadie gasps. “Oh, I’m sorry, Clemance. I didn’t mean to sound like I was disparaging your brother. Honestly, I’m not!” For once she speaks the truth about her immediate attitude to Sir John as she vents her frustrations over the correct prediction Gerald made that Lettice and Selwyn’s romantic interlude would come to naught because Lady Zinnia had other plans for her son’s marriage. “I apologise for any offence I may have caused you.”
“I accept your apology, Sadie.” Clemance says, albeit a little icily.
“I’m merely trying to point out why I don’t approve of Gerald.”
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, Sadie – even if you do – I’ve never heard such a lot of poppycock. Throw me into Gerald’s camp for being so forthright and speaking my mind, but you have nothing to be concerned about when it comes to your daughter’s reputation as far as Gerald is concerned, and I think it is most unfair that you refuse to consider such a brilliant young designer whom Lettice wants, to design her wedding dress because you have a petty grudge towards something he said to you under the influence three years ago.”
“It was very hurtful to me.” Sadie mewls rather lamely.
Clemance doesn’t answer, but simply gives Lady Sadie a withering look.
“Besides, Gerald is the youngest son of our Wiltshire neighbours, Lord and Lady Bruton, so he shall naturally be in attendance as a guest at the wedding. How do you think that will look socially when we tell people that he designed Lettice’s wedding frock?”
“I think that is a poor excuse, Sadie.” Clemance says frankly. “In fact, I don’t think it is an excuse at all. This is Lettice’s wedding dress we are speaking of. Surely, she should be able to choose who makes it.”
“I was never consulted about my wedding dress. My father was determined that no cost should be spared for my wedding gown. He wanted the best of the best for me, so he and my mother commissioned Worth to make one for me.”
“When was that, Sadie?”
“April 1882.”
“Well, it’s 1925 now. Times have changed, Sadie, and whilst I agree with you, I am tired of all the tumult and change of the Twentieth Century as you are, we must move with the times. Lettice must be allowed to have some say in her wedding dress.”
“Well… I…” Lady Sadie blusters.
“And,” Clemance interrupts. “Was your wedding dress beautiful, Sadie?”
“Oh, it was like a dream come true!” Lady Sadie gushes, her tone wistful and her eyes taking on a dreamy softness as she remembers walking up the aisle to join Cosmo at the altar of the Glynes village Church of England chapel.
“Well then, that much hasn’t changed. Lettice wants to get married in the wedding frock of her dreams too. She just happens to have more of an idea about what she wants than you did when you got married. So let her choose it, Sadie. Please! I implore you. It would make her happy. It would make me happy. It would make John happy, and even though you don’t believe it now, it will make you happy too.”
Sadie looks up at Clemance, who gazes earnestly across the low coffee table at her. She is torn. On one hand, she wants to put as many impediments in Lettice’s way as she plans her wedding to Sir John, so that Lettice has time to reconsider her rushed engagement. She can already see the shine wearing off the engagement the longer it goes on. Using every pretext to avoid giving in to Lettice’s wishes about a designer for her wedding frock just yet gives more of that time needed to show Lettice the folly of it all. On the other hand, she does not wish for Lettice to walk down the aisle in a frock she does not want to wear, no matter who she marries. Then again, she wants Lettice to marry a man as well suited to her, as good to her, as the Viscount has been. Lady Sadie doesn’t feel that Sir John will be that for Lettice. He's far older than her, is pragmatic rather than loving, and worst of all, he is a known philanderer, although she doubts that Clemance knows the latter of him judging by the way she defends him so quickly and earnestly. Lady Sadie knows that Lettice is aware of the fact that Sir John has liaisons, but that she hasn’t really considered what the consequences of marriage to such a man would be like. All she can see is heartache and pain for her daughter. Her throat suddenly feels dry, and her breathing becomes a little laboured. She reaches out with a shaking hand and picks up her teacup and nearly drains it of tea.
“I never said I wouldn’t consider it, Clemance.” she manages to say at length. “I just want Lettice to see a breadth of designers and not be so stubbornly affixed to Gerald making her frock.”
“Well do, Sadie.” Clemance says with a smile. “Please do give it serious consideration.”
“Clemance!”
Lettice’s calls alert both woman to Lettice’s imminent return to the drawing room and both quickly shuffle their lace handkerchiefs out of sight, straighten and smooth down their frocks and pat their hair self-consciously as they hurriedly compose themselves.
“Clemance, I couldn’t find them.” Lettice says as she walks back into the room and weaves her way back to Clemance and Lady Sadie around the clusters of occasional tables and salon chairs. “I even found your lady’s maid, but she said she hadn’t seen any magazines in your dressing room either.”
“Oh really?” Clemance asks, putting her hand to her temple a little melodramatically. “Well, well perhaps I was mistaken then. Maybe it was the ones I have already given you that I was thinking of. I must have muddled myself up. What a silly old fool I am!”
“Oh nonsense, Clemance!” Lettice assures her as she resumes her seat on the low floral chaise opposite her mother and adjunct to Clemance.
Lettice glances between the two older women as both of them focus unusually intently on the bottoms of their gilt teacups in their hands. Josette chirps away prettily in her cage oblivious to the atmosphere Lettice senses.
“So, what have I missed whilst I’ve been away?” She reaches forward and picks up the teapot and pours fresh tea into her cup. “Have you two been talking about me?”
Her mother gives her a withering look. “Contrary to popular belief, mostly of your own making Lettice my dear, the world does not always revolve around you.”
“We’ve just been getting to know one another a little better, dear.” Clemance adds, replacing her cup and saucer back onto the table next to Josette’s cage.
“And I’ve discovered that Clemance is a very wise woman, and she knows a great deal about fashion, so I have asked her to join us on a few of our little upcoming expeditions as we shop for your trousseau in the months ahead.”
“Oh hoorah!” Lettice claps her hands in delight. “Oh Mamma! I’m so pleased! I knew you would get along with Clemance!” She turns her attentions to Clemance and looks at her with hopeful eyes. “Maybe you can convince Mamma that I don’t think Madame Handley-Seymour or Redfern**************** should make my wedding frock.”
“We haven’t necessarily ruled anything in, or out, just yet, Lettice.” Lady Sadie says noncommittally.
“We shall just have to see, Lettice my dear.” Clemance adds. “Besides, you and Nettie haven’t even set a date yet. Between his schedule and your own, you really should look seriously as to when the big day will be.”
Lady Sadie gulps down the last of her tea awkwardly, and silently hopes that Lettice does not look seriously into the matter.
*A trousseau refers to the wardrobe and belongings of a bride, including her wedding dress or similar clothing such as day and evening dresses.
**Reville and Rossiter were a prestigious British court dressmaking and millinery firm, well-known during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. The company catered to high society and royalty, making them highly respected in their field. Their work was primarily centred around creating elegant and formal attire for aristocracy, the upper class, and members of the royal family, particularly for events like court appearances, balls, and other ceremonial occasions. Reville and Rossiter were established in London around the late 1800s. The firm specialised in creating bespoke dresses, gowns, and accessories, with a focus on high-quality craftsmanship and luxurious materials. Their expertise was in making highly decorative and stylish outfits, often for women of the British Royal Family or for other prominent individuals of the period.
***Nuptials is an alternative word for marriage. The term “nuptials” emphasizes the ceremonial and legal aspects of a marriage, lending a more formal tone to wedding communications and documentation.
****Fitzroy Square is a Georgian square in London, England. It is the only one in the central London area known as Fitzrovia. The square is one of the area's main features, this once led to the surrounding district to be known as Fitzroy Square or Fitzroy Town and latterly as Fitzrovia, though the nearby Fitzroy Tavern is thought to have had as much influence on the name as Fitzroy Square.
*****A ‘mansion flat’ refers to a luxurious apartment, often found in a large, grand building, particularly in Britain. These flats are characterised by their spaciousness, high ceilings, and often feature ornate design elements, resembling the grand scale of a mansion. As the daughter of a Viscount, it stands to reason that whilst Lettice lives in a flat, rather than a grand house, her flat is spacious and luxurious, implying it is a ‘mansion flat’.
******Zeppelin raids on London occurred during the First World War. These raids were part of Germany's strategy to conduct bombing campaigns against Britain. Zeppelins, which were large rigid airships, were used by the German military to carry out long-range bombing missions, primarily targeting civilian areas and infrastructure. The raids began in 1915, and while they didn't cause huge numbers of casualties compared to other forms of warfare, they created widespread panic and disrupted life in London and other parts of Britain. The first Zeppelin raid on London took place on May the 31st, 1915. Over the course of the war, the German airships dropped bombs on various cities, including London, causing deaths, injuries, and significant damage. Whilst the Zeppelins were initially successful in carrying out these attacks, they also had significant vulnerabilities. They were slow, large, and relatively easy targets for British aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery. By 1917, as more advanced aircraft and tactics were developed, the Zeppelins became less effective, and the German military shifted to using other types of bombers, including Gotha biplanes, which were faster and harder to target. Despite their limited military impact, the Zeppelin raids contributed to the sense of vulnerability and fear that civilians in Britain felt during the war, as they were one of the first large-scale aerial bombing campaigns in history.
*******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.
*******London first introduced enclosed-top double-decker buses in 1923. These buses were a significant advancement in public transportation compared to the previous open-top double-deckers, which had been in service since the late Nineteenth Century. The new enclosed buses provided better protection from the weather, making travel more comfortable for passengers, especially during the colder months. The AEC (Associated Equipment Company) open-top double-decker buses had been the norm for Londoners prior to the 1920s. However, with the growth of the city's population and increased demand for more reliable, year-round transportation, there was a shift towards enclosed buses, which could be operated more easily in all seasons. The first enclosed double-deckers were typically known as "motor buses" and came with a fully enclosed upper deck. This was also a response to changing design standards and the improvement of motorized vehicles, which by the 1920s were starting to replace horse-drawn buses entirely. This change marked the beginning of the modern London bus network, with these enclosed buses becoming a hallmark of London's public transport system for much of the Twentieth Century.
********“Le Petit Écho de la Mode” was launched as a weekly magazine in 1880, with a free model pattern introduced in 1883, by which time it was selling 210,000 copies across France per week. By 1900, when “Le Petit Écho de la Mode” first introduced a colour front page, it had a circulation of over 300,000 per week. Surviving the Second World War, the zenith of the magazine came in 1950, when it had a record circulation of one and half million. After being taken over by their competitor “Femmes d’Aujourd’hui” in 1977, “Le Petit Écho de la Mode” finally ceased publication 104 years after it was first released, in 1984.
*********Motcomb Street is a street in the City of Westminster's Belgravia district in London. It is known for its luxury fashion shops, such as Christian Louboutin shoes, Stewart Parvin gowns, and the jeweller Carolina Bucci, and was the location of the original Pantechnicon department store. In 1925 when this story is set, it was home to dozens of Count dressmakers and well known couturiers. The street runs south-west to north-east from Lowndes Street to a junction with Wilton Terrace, Wilton Crescent, and Belgrave Mews North. Kinnerton Street joins it on the north side and Halkin Mews is on the south side.
**********Elizabeth Handley-Seymour (1867–1948) was a London-based fashion designer and court-dressmaker operating as Madame Handley-Seymour between 1910 and 1940. She is best known for creating the wedding dress worn by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, for her marriage to the Duke of York, the future King George VI, in 1923; and later, Queen Elizabeth's coronation gown in 1937.
***********Elizabeth Bowes Lyon went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to" In 1925, when this story was set, she and the Prince were known as the Duke and Duchess of York.
************Charles Frederick Worth was an English fashion designer who founded the House of Worth, one of the foremost fashion houses of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. He is considered by many fashion historians to be the father of haute couture. Worth is also credited with revolutionising the business of fashion. Established in Paris in 1858, his fashion salon soon attracted European royalty, and where they led monied society followed. An innovative designer, he adapted 19th-century dress to make it more suited to everyday life, with some changes said to be at the request of his most prestigious client Empress Eugénie. He was the first to replace the fashion dolls with live models in order to promote his garments to clients, and to sew branded labels into his clothing; almost all clients visited his salon for a consultation and fitting – thereby turning the House of Worth into a society meeting point. By the end of his career, his fashion house employed over one thousand two hundred people and its impact on fashion taste was far-reaching.
*************The idiom “to carry a torch (for someone)” means to love or to be romantically infatuated with someone, especially when such feelings are not reciprocated. It is often used to characterise a situation in which a romantic relationship has ended, but where one partner still loves the other.
**************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.
***************To get tight is an old fashioned term used to describe getting drunk.
****************Redfern was a renowned fashion house that operated in both London and Paris during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Founded in 1855 on the Isle of Wight by John Redfern, the Redfern company began as a tailor specializing in women’s clothing, particularly yachting attire for upper-class women. It gained prominence for its sporty, elegant tailoring, especially during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Redfern opened branches in London on Bond Street, in Paris, and New York, becoming one of the earliest international haute couture houses. By the 1880s, Redfern was officially designated as Court Dressmaker to Queen Victoria and later to Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary. The brand's prominence faded by the 1930s. While the Paris house closed around 1932, the legacy of Redfern's contributions to modern women's fashion endured in tailoring traditions.
This upper-class drawing room may appear real to you, but it is in fact made up of 1:12 miniature pieces from my extensive collection, including items from my old childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The gilt Art Nouveau tea set on Clemance’s low coffee table, featuring a copy of a Royal Doulton leaves pattern, comes from a larger tea set which has been hand decorated by beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The very realistic looking chocolate sponge cake topped with creamy icing and strawberries has been made from polymer clay and was made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Silver filagree bowl of roses I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom
1:12 size miniature hats made to exacting standards of quality and realism such as those seen in this photograph are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that each would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet they could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, they are an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. The maker of Lady Sadie’s feather plumed and pink rose covered cloche and Lettice’s pink straw flower decorated hat are unknown, but they are part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The two parasols with their lacy furls and beautiful handles are also part of Marilyn Bickel’s former collection.
Lettice’s snakeskin handbag lying on the chaise, with its gold clasp and chain comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom.
The wicker cage with the bird on its perch I acquired through an online stockist on E-Bay. The wooden pedestal table it stands on is made from beautiful golden walnut and is an unsigned artisan piece that I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop. The embroidered footstools you can see also came from there.
Clemance’s floral chintz sofa and chair are made by J.B.M. miniatures who specialise in well made pieces of miniature furniture made to exacting standards. The floral cushions on it,with their lacy edges and the floral chaise in the foreground came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop
In the background you can see Clemance’s grand piano which I have had since I was about ten years of age. It is made from walnut. The footstool has several sheets of music on it which were made by Ken Blythe. The sofa in the background to the left of the photo is part of a Marie Antionette suite with pretty floral upholstery which has been made by the high-end miniatures manufacturer, Creal. The coffee table in the midground is from the same set, as is the chair to the right of the photo.
The gilt swan pedestals in the background are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq. The vases of flowers on them are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
Standing on the hand painted set of drawers to the right of the photo stand are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces, The pair have been hand painted and gilded by me. The two vases flanking them come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop, whilst in front of them stand three floral pieces made by miniature ceramicist and artisan, Anne Dalton.
All the paintings around Clemance’s drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of late Victorian paper from the 1880s.
The Persian rugs on the floor has been woven by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia.
All of the pictures are © copyright by P1ay "All rights are reserved" worldwide. Please do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs. However please feel free to contact with me if you are interested in using any of my images.
My little sister is going to be 30th this week and I am so proud and honoured to have grown up with her and watch her grow from a little baby to the amazing women that she is today, so we just had to a throw her a party…
I saw this cake and thought it was perfect for her…it was a vanilla sponge cake, it had ferrero rocher on the top with kinder bueno on the side and they stuck the bueno with whip cream….I can tell you that it was amazing!!!!!
Not much on the editing, just played with the spilt tone to bring out the cream a bit more and added a slight vignetting in lightrooms.
All of the pictures are © copyright by P1ay "All rights are reserved" worldwide. Please do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs. However please feel free to contact with me if you are interested in using any of my images.
A slice of Victoria Sponge Cake at Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire.
For the '7 Deadly Sins' theme (in particular, Gluttony!) in the 52 Weeks 2015 Edition group.
Nice to know manufacturers of food colouring are being kept in business. Bought yesterday for a very select soirée - from a muslim-run bakery LOL
YUM! I just made my favourite cake... #notsharing :)
Recipe: www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/532634/grannys-victoria-sponge
This is my most recent order from Kawaii Shop! I just got the package today! Whee! I got my first ever Onsen Manju Kun, and he is the big squishy kind! :D
I also got 2 Mamegoma figures and a Spongecake, which is not shown in the picture. I love these guys so much, and I can't get over how cute they are! XD
This is Steven. He was standing in an alley off of a tourist area surrounded by packed up instruments, including a stand-up bass. It was unusual enough, and also because I also play the stand-up bass that I had to ask what on earth he was up to. Steven is with a Bluegrass band called Spongecake and they were heading out of town for a gig.
We chatted a bit about music, Bluegrass, and the music industry. Steven is from North Carolina and the band is out on tour but they try to play Denver often. He said next time they're in town he's going to let me know, and maybe have me come take some photos of the band performing. I hope that happens!
He was totally agreeable about having his picture taken though we couldn't leave the instruments for a better photo location. They are piled up against a wall immediately to his right.
Steven has a very quick and engaging smile. We took a few different shots, a few more serious and reflective, but I think this one captures the genuine friendliness I experienced from him that day.
This picture is #8 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
Upload for Strobist Sunday Dramatic theme.
We made some cake on Friday night, always a nice task! My American friends are probably familiar with Red Velvet sponge cake, its the first time I'd heard of it when Selena said lets make one of these as it will look good in a photograph. Red is a nice dramatic colour and a knew we had the right props to make a nice sexy dessert shot.
Also it was the Grand National here yesterday so I shot all morning then we took the cake round to my friends Stephen and watched the race there and ate some cake - having this much cake round the house wouldn't be good for my waistline! Needless to say, no one won anything all our horses either fell or came in 2nd, 3rd or 4th!
Lighting here is a mix of ambient and flash, SB900 in 60cm softbox camera right and behind and above the cake about 70cm away, positioned so it didn't light the back ground to much. The "go faster stripe" reflection on the plate and shadows gives away the softbox position and add drama. Fill on the cake is a snooted SB600 camera left. Fill on the cup is ambient window light. Not sure what the EV settings were, probably +1 on the softbox and -1.7 on the snoot.
This cake is for Olivia who dreamt of a pink heart shaped cake with lots of roses for her confirmation-party.
It is spongecake and chocolate cake filled with raspberry- and chocolatemousse. Sugarpaste icing and roses made of flowerpaste.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today, Lettice is entertaining the world famous British concert pianist, Sylvia Fordyce in her well appointed her Cavendish Mews drawing room. Lettice met Sylvia at a private audience after a performance at the Royal Albert Hall*. Sylvia is the long-time friend of Lettice’s fiancée, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes and his widowed sister Clementine (known preferably now by the more cosmopolitan Clemance) Pontefract, the latter of whom Sylvia has known since they were both eighteen. Lettice, Sir John and Clemance were invited to join Sylvia in her dressing room after her Schumann and Brahms concert. After a brief chat with Sir John (whom she refers to as Nettie, using the nickname only his closest friends use) and Clemance, Sylvia had her personal secretary, Atlanta, show them out so that she could discuss “business” with Lettice. Anxious that like so many others, Sylvia would try to talk Lettice out of marrying Sir John, who is old enough to be her father and known for his philandering and not so discreet dalliances with pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger, Lettice was surprised when Sylvia admitted that when she said that she wanted to discuss business, that was what she genuinely meant. Sylvia owns a small country property just outside of Belchamp St Paul** on which she had a secluded little house she calls ‘The Nest’ built not so long ago by architect Sydney Castle***: a house she had decorated by society interior designer Syrie Maugham****. However, unhappy with Mrs. Maugham’s passion for shades of white, Sylvia wanted Lettice to inject some colour into the drawing room of her country retreat by painting a feature wall for her. Thus, she invited Lettice to motor up to Essex with her for an overnight stay at the conclusion of her concert series at The Hall to see the room for herself, and perhaps get some ideas as to what and how she might paint it. Lettice agreed to Sylvia’s commission, and originally had the idea of painting flowers on the wall, reflecting the newly planted cottage garden outside the large drawing room windows of ‘The Nest’. However, after hearing the story of Sylvia’s life – a sad story throughout which, up until more recent years, she had felt like a bird trapped in a cage, Lettice has opted to paint the wall with stylised feathers, expressing the freedom to fly and soar that Sylvia’s later life has given her the ability to do. Delighted with the outcome of her new feature wall, Sylvia has come to Cavendish Mews today to pay the remainder of her bill in full, a result not always so easily come by, by some of Lettice’s previous wealthy clients.
Just as Edith, Lettice’s maid, is arranging one of her light and fluffy sponge onto a white gilt edged plate in the kitchen to serve to Lettice and her guest, she hears the mechanical buzz of the Cavendish Mews servant’s call bell. Glancing up she notices the circle for the front door has changed from black to red, indicating that it is the front door bell that has rung.
“Oh blast.” she mutters. “Just as I’m about to serve cake too.”
Quickly whipping off the stained apron she is wearing which has splashes of cream and strawberry juice from decorating the cake, she hurries from the kitchen into the public area of the flat via a door in the scullery adjoining the kitchen, snatching up a clean apron from a hook by the door as she goes. Quickly fastening the freshly laundered apron over her blue and white striped calico print morning uniform as she walks into the entrance hall.
The front door buzzer goes again, sounding noisily, filling the atmosphere with a jarring echo.
“Edith?” Lettice’s voice calls from the drawing room where she is sitting with Sylvia.
“On my way, Miss!” Edith assures her mistress in a harried tone as she hurries across the think Chinese silk carpet to the front door. “I’m coming, alright. I’m coming.” mutters Edith irritably to herself as she makes her way toward the front door with rushed footsteps. “Keep your hair on****.”
She pats her cap and the hairpins holding her blonde waves neatly in place as she goes, hoping that she looks presentable as she opens the front door.
“It’s only little me, dear Lettice.” Gerald simpers as he walks into the drawing room where Lettice sits in her usual black japanned, rounded back, while upholstered tup armchair next to the telephone, whilst Sylvia Fordyce lounges languidly in the one opposite.
“Oh Gerald! What a lovely surprise!” Lettice says, standing up, the lilt in her voice cheerful, but the look in her sparkling blue eyes murderous as she glances at Gerald. “I… I thought I told you I was entertaining Miss Fordyce is afternoon.”
“Oh, you may well have,” he answers, lightly tapping the side of his head beneath the brim of his straw boater absently. “But silly me, it must have completely slipped my mind. I’m so sorry!” His words are apologetic, and his behaviour contrite, but there is a mischievous hazel tinted glint in his own dark brown eyes, and a cheeky curl upturning the corner of his mouth as she speaks that betrays his true thoughts. “It’s only a fleeting visit. I merely came by to drop off a little something for you.” He holds out a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine towards Lettice.
For the moment, Gerald politely ignores Sylvia’s dark sloe eyed stare as she remains draped languidly in her armchair, her long fingers steepled in front of her chest. He can feel her silently appraising his well-cut navy blue blazer with glinting gold buttons, his pressed white trousers with a crisp crease down the middle at both the front and back, his natty yet at the same time slightly foppish blue and white striped tie with a matching pocket square*****, his bold red carnation boutonnière****** and his stylish straw boater.
“Oh Gerald! Lettice says, accepting the gift. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Oh,” Gerald retorts, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing really, just a new scarf in silk I had printed with one of my designs in Lyon. I had a few made up, but I wanted you to the be first to have one, of course. They are very much your colours, my dear Lettice.”
“Ahh!” exclaims Sylvia, suddenly breaking her languid pose and leaning forward in her seat, looking up at Gerald with great interest as her red painted mouth hangs open in anticipation, her tongue pressed to the base of her mouth behind her slightly discoloured teeth. “So, this is the wunderkind******* Gerald Bruton, of whom I have read so much about in The Lady******** as he takes the London fashion scene by storm.”
“Oh! Where are my matters!” Lettice remarks, quickly putting Gerald’s unopened parcel aside. “Sylvia darling, may I introduce Mr. Gerald Bruton, Grosvenor Street couturier, and my oldest, dearest and sometimes,” She pauses for effect. “My most frustrating chum from childhood. Gerald darling, may I introduce Miss Sylvia Fordyce, the world famous British concert pianist.”
“And you latest client… and hopefully new friend.” Sylvia adds with a smile.
It is only then that Gerald allows himself to truly take his attention away from Lettice and focus upon her guest. Wearing an over-sized chocolate brown velvet cloche, Sylvia’s black dyed sharp bob pokes out from beneath it, framing her striking, angular face which is caked with a thick layer of white makeup. Her lips are painted a bright red, which appears even more garish against the white of her face paint, just as the darkness of her glittering eyes are intensified by her white, almost ethereal, pallor. She wears no necklace, nor any earrings that Gerald can discern beneath the bottom of her cloche. In fact, her only piece of jewellery is a large aquamarine and diamond cluster ring on the left middle finger on her elegant pianist’s right hand. However, being the only piece of ornamentation she wears, it makes the ring, already a striking piece in its own right, even more so as it sparkles and winks beneath the electric light of Lettice’s chandelier overhead. Her outfit is simple and stripped back: a white satin blouse accessorised with a black and white cheque silk scarf tied in a loose and artistic style, and a long column like skirt in black, beneath the hem of which poke the pointed toes of a pair of high heeled black patent leather boots. Far from being conventionally beautiful, the pianist has captured the power of dressing to make her presence unignorable, and she wears her cultivated look with unabashed pride.
“Miss Fordyce needs no introduction.” Gerald enthuses as he bends down and raises Sylvia’s elegant hand, kissing it gently just above the sparkling cluster ring. “Enchanté.” he breathes in French.
“Charmante,” Sylvia replies with an enigmatic smile, bowing her head slightly as she slowly withdraws her hand from Gerald’s, enjoying the attention her is lavishing upon her. “I could say the same about you, Mr. Bruton, for Lettice speaks of you fondly, and often. I believe that it is you I have to thank for our clever Lettice finishing my feature wall. She has just been telling me that when her inspiration or energy was flagging whilst she was painting it, you spurned her on to complete it. I’m most grateful.”
“I did my best, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald replies, his cheeks flushing red at Sylvia’s compliment. “Lettice is,” He turns his head away from Sylvia and focuses upon his best friend. “A remarkable artist, and highly skilled.”
“Oh Gerald!” Lettice gasps.
“It sounds like you are also her biggest champion, my dear Mr. Bruton.” Sylvia opines.
“But,” Gerald goes on. “She doesn’t have the faith in her own abilities that she should.” He returns his attentions to Sylvia. “I’m sure you agree, Miss Fordyce.”
“Indeed I do, Mr. Bruton. Your friend is highly accomplished, and I was just telling our clever Lettice how delighted I am with my new feature wall.”
“I think it is very beautiful too, Miss Fordyce. You are most fortunate.” Gerald replies.
Without saying anything, Lettice gently puts her hand on Gerald’s forearm.
“Well!” Gerald says, clearing his throat a little awkwardly, taking Lettice’s silent hint in his stride. “I did say that this was only a fleeting visit. I really should be off.” He looks at Lettice with a meaningful look. “I’ve been here enough times to show myself out, whilst you entertain your guest. I do hope you like the scarf.”
“Oh really?” Sylvia interjects rising elegantly from her seat, the fabric of her outfit draping down over her slender frame like shivering water. “Must you go?” She turns her head to Lettice. “Must he go, Lettice darling? Your maid was fetching us cake wasn’t she? Surely there is enough for three?” She turns back to Gerald. “Please, Mr. Bruton. I’d so love you to stay! Darling Lettice and I have finished up the tedious part of my visit, settling my account, and we were just prattling away idly, weren’t we Lettice darling? Besides, I would value your opinion, since you are an arbiter of fashion, Mr. Bruton. Please?” She pouts her scarlet painted lips, which even in a plumped up form still have a slender look about them. “Please!”
“Well I…” Gerald looks between Sylvia and Lettice. “I suppose I could tarry for a short while. I don’t have to be at my next appointment just yet, and I do so love Edith’s sponges, which she has told me she has made for you, Miss Fordyce.”
“Oh Gerald!” Lettice laughs. “Please drop the pretence and save yourself the embarrassment. Bring that chair over and join us.” She indicates with a sweeping gesture to the black japanned Chippendale chair, upholstered in silver and blue Art Deco fabric, which whilst unorthodox with such clashing styles , works under Lettice’s clever eye for design. “I’ll tell Edith we’re a trio now.” She steps over and depresses the servants’ call button by the fireplace, the buzzer echoing in the service area of the flat.
“Thank you, Lettice.” Gerald says gratefully as he takes off his straw boater and places it on one of Lettice’s black japanned side tables before drawing up the chair she has indicated to the coffee table and takes a seat.
“Did Cyril put you up to this?” Lettice asks him, mentioning Gerald’s young, fey and more overtly homosexual lover who lives in a boarding house for theatrical types in Putney with Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford, who designs hats in addition to running her rather dramatic boarding house. “Turning up on my doorstep, knowing that Miss Fordyce would be here?”
“Well...” Gerald says, blushing red as he speaks.
“I knew you hadn’t forgotten that I told you Miss Fordyce was visiting today!” Lettice wags a finger at Gerald. “It isn’t like you to forget a date, even if it isn’t one of your own.”
“Who is Cyril, Mr. Bruton?” Sylvia asks, intrigued as she resumes her languid stance in her tub chair again.
“Cyril is my… my friend, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald pipes up quickly. “He’s… he’s an oboist who plays in the West End theatres, and like me,” He bushes even deeper. “He is a very big fan of yours, Miss Fordyce.”
“A friend.” Sylvia muses, looking Gerald up and down knowingly, but keeping her impressions to herself behind her heavily painted face, only smiling politely in acknowledgement of Gerald.
“When I told him that I was going with Lettice to stay at your very lovely little country retreat in Essex, he was more than a little jealous.”
“Was he indeed?” Sylvia chuckles indulgently.
Just at that moment, Edith walks into the drawing room.
“You rang, Miss?” Edith says, bobbing a polite curtsey.
“Yes Edith.” Lettice replies. “Mr. Bruton is staying now, so it will be tea for three now, if you can manage it.”
“Of course Miss.” Edith replies. “May I take your hat, Mr. Bruton.”
“Thank you Edith.” he says, passing her his straw boater. “I do like your delicious sponge cake, Edith.” Gerald compliments the young girl.
“Thank you, Sir.” Edith replies, blushing as she basks momentarily in Gerald’s compliment before bobbing another quick curtsey to the assembled company and retreating back into the dining room and through the green baize door, back into the service area of the flat.
“Even if my figure suffers for it.” Gerald adds, turning his attentions back to Sylvia.
“Such high praise for your cook, Lettice darling.” Sylvia says with her expertly plucked black eyebrows arching high over her eyes. “I am in for a treat!”
“Edith is an excellent cook when it comes to cakes, Sylvia darling, so I asked her to bake her speciality today, a cream filled strawberry sponge cake.”
“Goodness!” Sylvia gasps. “No wonder your figure suffers, Mr. Bruton, at the sound of such extravagance. I myself,” She raises a hand to her throat. “Do not suffer the same problem. As a performer, I have far too much frenetic energy to burn.”
“And you do it with such theatricality,” Gerald enthuses.
“Why thank you, Mr. Bruton.” Sylvia says, smiling indulgently as she does. “Such a lovely compliment.”
“Oh Gerald!” Lettice giggles. “I do believe you are quite smitten with Sylvia.”
“Don’t be cheeky…” Gerald goes to call Lettice by her most hated childhood pet name, ‘Lettuce Leaf’, but being the presence of the pianist he so admires, and wanting to maintain a good impression, he swallows awkwardly and finishes a little lamely, “Lettice.”
Sylvia laughs heartily. “You two do know each other well, don’t you, Lettice darling? You have a way between you that seems very comfortable. Have you known Mr. Bruton all your life?”
“Yes.” Lettice replies.
“I’m just a little older than Lettice, and we grew up on neighbouring estates in Wiltshire,” Gerald goes on. “And all of Lettice’s siblings, with the exception of her beast of a brother Lionel, are much older that we are, and my own brother Roland is a few years my senior and never had time for me.”
“So we just ended up playing together, didn’t we Gerald?”
“We did, Lettice.”
“And so, we became the best of chums and have stayed as such ever since.”
“How utterly delightful!” Sylvia opines with a clap of her hands. “But please, do go on about your friend, Cyril, Mr. Bruton. I love the West End theatre scene, and attend whenever my schedule allows. We theatrical types must support one another and stick together. Perhaps I’ve seen, or rather heard, your young oboist friend in a show?”
“Well, Cyril was performing in Julian Wylie’s********* revue, ‘Better Days’********** at the Hippodrome***********, but it’s just finished, so he is between engagements at the moment.”
“I see.” Sylvia replies, nodding and staring deeply into Gerald’s eyes.
“You… err, you wanted to ask me something about fashion, I believe, Miss Fordyce?” Gerald asks, feeling uncomfortable under Sylvia’s inscrutable stare.
“I did, Mr. Bruton!” Sylvia replies animatedly, releasing Gerald from her scrutiny. “Thank you for reminding me. Being the arbiter and setter of current London fashion trends that you are…”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald chuckles, blushing yet again.
“Nonsense! Mr. Bruton!” Sylvia scoffs. “False modesty doesn’t suit you any more than it does darling Lettice, and,” She wags her index finger admonishingly at him, the cluster of diamonds and aquamarines on the finger next to it glinting and gleaming in the light. “It’s no good for business. Did you not design this divine frock for Lettice?”
Gerald turns to face Lettice, although he has no need to, as he recognised the rose and marone silk georgette knife pleated frock, the same one she wore when she first arrived at ‘The Nest’ with Sylvia when she went to look at the wall her hostess wanted redecorated, as being one of his own designs for Lettice the moment he laid eyes on her upon walking into the drawing room. “Indeed it is, Miss Fordyce.”
“Then I stand by what I say, Mr. Bruton. You have an eye for colour and cut, style and panache, and you create things that flatter your customers.”
“Well, Lettice is a special case, Miss Fordyce. As you’ve heard, she is my best friend, and she has always been so supportive of my frock making, ever since I first began. She’s something of a muse to me.”
“Muse or not, if you couldn’t design frocks, had no style or awareness of colour, poor Lettice might be wearing something that makes her look perfectly hideous at the moment. Although,” She turns and ponders over Lettice sitting comfortably in her armchair. “I do think that would be very hard to do, since she is so lithe and lovely.”
“We concur in that opinion, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald agrees.
“However, I stand by what I said before, you are an arbiter of fashion, and your creations are influencing what London women are wearing. So, I wanted to ask you, what is your opinion on,” She stands up suddenly, and spreads her legs slightly, the movement causing the black fabric of what Gerald had thought was a dress to reveal itself as being a pair of roomy Oxford bags************. “Women wearing trousers?”
Lettice immediately sees this as being a test for Gerald, as to whether Sylvia, who doesn’t suffer fools or people who don’t tend to share her opinion, will want to invite him to join her exclusive coterie of friends, as she has Lettice. Lettice sits forward slightly in her seat, causing an almost imperceptible widening of her guest’s eyes opposite her, the change, and slight flash in her eyes as she stares at Gerald causing Lettice to sit back in her seat.
Without batting an eyelid, Gerald replies firmly. “I always admired Paul Poiret************* for introducing wide legged trousers for women in 1910. I thought it a pity that they only caught on amongst the most avant-garde and daring of his clients.”
Lettice releases the pent-up breath she has silently been holding, sighing with relief, knowing by the subtle curl in Sylvia’s red streak of a mouth that she is pleased with Gerald’s response.
“And when do you think it will be commonplace to see trousers for women in London shops, Mr. Bruton?” Sylvia goes on, placing her hands in a stance of defiance on her hips. “Currently I have to travel to Berlin to get mine.” She kicks up her right heel a little, making her slacks billow for a moment before falling back down elegantly against her legs.
“Ahh, that is a very good question, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald replies. “If I had my way, they would be readily available for all women to wear. However…”
“However?” Sylvia asks.
“However, the English are conservative by nature, Miss Fordyce, and women wearing trousers would be too shocking for their taste, at least currently. London is not Paris, or Berlin, madam.”
At that moment, the conversation is broken by the sound of china rattling against silver, as Edith pushes open the green baize door leading from the scullery to the dining room carrying a large silver tray laden with Lettice’s best Art Deco Royal Doulton ‘Falling Leaves’ tea set, cups, saucers and plates to match, and one of her beautiful strawberry sponge cakes. The trio watch, transfixed as she slowly walks across the dining room and into the drawing room carrying the tray, which looks far to heavy for a girl as dainty as Edith. They observe in silence as she lowers the tray onto the low, black japanned coffee table, before rising and bobbing a curtsy to her mistress.
“Will there be anything else, Miss?” Edith asks, aware of the attention and curiosity she has created with her presence, but determined not to let it impact her polite and calm manner.
“No, thank you, Edith.” Lettice replies politely. “However, I’ll be sure to call if we need anything else.”
“Very good, Miss.” She bobs another curtsey and quickly retreats back to the kitchen.
“Yes,” Sylvia says quietly with a sigh as she watches Edith’s retreating figure disappear back through the green baize door. “The idea of women wearing trousers does seem to be too unpalatable for so much of the British population. Take your maid, for example, Lettice darling. Both times I have visited you here at Cavendish Mews, she cannot help but look aghast at my outlandish roomy trousers, her horror as plain as the nose on her face!”
“Oh Sylvia, darling!” Lettice protests, as she begins to unpack the tray and set up the teacups onto saucers. “That isn’t fair to poor Edith!”
“Whyever not, Lettice darling?” Sylvia retorts. “Surely it would be more practical for her to do her job, were she to wear trousers than some calico frock like she is wearing now. She should find the idea of me wearing trousers exciting, not abhorrent!”
“That may well be, Miss Fordyce, but she’ll never wear them.” Gerald replies.
“How ridiculous! I ask again, whyever not?” Sylvia asks again, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation.
“Because Edith is what is known as a good girl.” Lettice elucidates. “She was brought up by her parents: a factory worker and a laundress I believe, to have moral scruples.”
“Moral scruples!” Sylvia scoffs dismissively.
“Where she comes from, Sylvia darling, women are servants, wives or mothers. They don’t rune businesses. They aren’t concert pianists. And they certainly don’t wear trousers.”
“She’ll never wear them, Miss Fordyce,” Gerald agrees. “Never!”
“And you, Mr. Bruton?” Sylvia asks with a cunning smile.
“Me, Miss Fordyce?”
“Would you be willing to make trousers for women, even if it would shock some parts of London society?”
“Well, as a matter-of-fact, Miss Fordyce,” Gerald says with a conspiratorial smile and a twinkle in his eyes. “I happen to be in the process of designing a range of beach pyjamas************* at the moment.”
“Beach pyjamas?” Sylvia asks, licking her lips with excitement. “What are they?”
“Well, rather like the name suggests, it’s a pair of wide-legged trousers with a matching blouse, made from colourful, brightly patterned cotton fabrics, similar to what you might wear to bed.”
“I don’t wear anything to bed, Mr. Bruton.” Sylvia replies with a throaty chuckle.
“Sylvia!” Lettice admonishes her guest as Gerald blushes red.
“Please pardon my lack of moral scruples, Mr. Bruton.” Sylvia says teasingly. “Perhaps I should take a leaf from your maid, Lettice darling.” She then continues, “Do go on about your beach pyjamas, Mr. Bruton! They sound positively delicious!” Sylvia murmurs.
“They are all the rage in Deauville.” Gerald goes on.
“Deauville is hardly Bournemouth, Brighton or Lyme Regis.” Lettice counters as she removes Edith’s cake from the tray.
“I just need an exponent of them who would be brave enough and willing to wear them.” Gerald defends.
“Maybe.” Lettice mutters doubtfully.
“Could they be made of silk or satin, Mr. Bruton?” Sylvia asks, sitting up, her eyes twinkling darkly.
“Of course, Miss Fordyce. In fact, they lend themselves to being made of something so deliciously extravagant.”
“Surely you aren’t suggesting you’d be Gerald’s proponent and wear beach pyjamas, Sylvia darling?” Lettice asks.
“Well why not, Lettice darling?” Sylvia counters her friend. “You know me well enough by now to know I don’t give a fig what people think! I am my own woman.” She pats her chest proudly. “Besides,” she adds with a throaty chuckle. “I’d enjoy nothing more than shocking those ghastly prudish Edwardian matrons sitting in their deckchairs along the pier at Bognor Regis*************** as I parade before them in a pair of Mr. Bruton’s beach pyjamas!” She pauses. “Made of satin, of course!”
“Of course, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald agrees, quickly getting swept up in the promise of the idea.
“Excellent!” Sylvia laughs. “What jolly fun!”
“Rather!” Gerald agrees, growing excited at the thought. “Jolly good show, Miss Fordyce!”
“Do you know what, Mr. Bruton?” Sylvia asks, as she accepts a cup of freshly poured tea from her hostess. “I’ve just had the most marvellous idea! I was saying to Lettice here, just before you arrived, how I was thinking of throwing a small soirée at ‘The Nest’ with a few like-minded friends: musicians, artists and the like,” She gesticulates about her as if demonstrating who the people’s professions might be. “To celebrate the completion of my fabulous Lettice Chetwynd original feature wall, and for me to be able to show it off to a few of my dearest friends.”
“That sounds splendid, Miss Fordyce.” Gerald says.
“Well I was just thinking, why don’t you join us? Lettice will have a familiar face beyond mine and Nettie’s to look at.”
“Nettie?” Gerald queries.
“It’s John’s pet name given him by Clemance and a select group of close friends.” Lettice pipes up as she hands Gerald his teacup. “But please don’t you call him that, Gerald darling!” she implores. “I don’t think I could take it seriously, coming from you.”
“Have no fear, Lettice darling!” Gerald chuckles. “I don’t think I could come at calling Sir John that, even if you wanted me too.” He screws up his nose in a mixture of perplexity and distaste. “Nettie…. Nettie.” He shakes his head.
“You could bring your… friend,” Sylvia goes on, her eyebrows arching over her eyes before she gives Gerald a cheeky and conspiratorial wink. “Cyril. Playing the oboe, he’s a musician after all, so he’d be in good company, and you did say just before that he was a trifle jealous of you getting to visit ‘The Nest’ without him.”
“That really is most generous of you, Miss Fordyce!” Gerald exclaims.
“Oh, my offer doesn’t come for free.” Sylvia’s dark eyes widen and sparkle in the light of the room. “There are strings attached to my invitation. I’m an artist, Mr. Bruton. I can’t afford to be that altruistic. No. I’d do you a trade. You and Cyril may come for a weekend at ‘The Nest’ and enjoy my company, and my largess, in return for a pair of your delicious sounding beach pyjamas, in satin! Deal?” she holds out her right hand, rather like an American businessman.
Gerald feels awkward as he mimics Sylvia, but he reaches out and shakes her hand. “Deal.”
*The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington in London, built in the style of an ancient amphitheatre. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for the BBC Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941.
**Belchamp St Paul is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. The village is five miles west of Sudbury, Suffolk, and 23 miles northeast of the county town, Chelmsford.
***Sydney Ernest Castle was born in Battersea in July 1883. He trained with H. W. Edwards, a surveyor and worked as chief assistant to Arthur Jessop Hardwick (1867 - 1948) before establishing his own practice in London in 1908. From 1908 to 1918 he was in partnership with Gerald Warren (1881-1936) as Castle & Warren. He worked on St. George's Hill Estate in Weybridge, Surrey with Walter George Tarrant (1875-1942). Castle was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1925. He designed many buildings, including the Christian Association building in Clapham, a school in Balham and a private hotel in the Old Brompton Road, as well as many private residences throughout Britain. His firm’s address in 1926, when this story is set was 40, Albemarle Street, Piccadilly. He died in Wandsworth in March 1955.
****Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.
****Meaning to keep calm and be patient, the earliest occurrence of the phrase “to keep your hair on” is recorded in The Entr’acte magazine in London in 1873, which mentioned that at the Winchester, a London music hall, an artist named Ted Callingham sang “Roving Joe” and “Keep Your Hair On”, two very laughable comic songs. A year later in 1874, it was being used commonly amongst the working classes. It is generally said that the phrase is based on the image of pulling one’s hair out in exasperation, anger or frustration, however some connect it to an earlier phrase from the Eighteenth Century “pulling off one’s wig” which refers to irascible and aged gentlemen, “when mad with passion,” have been known not only to curse and swear, but to tear their wigs from their heads, and to trample them under their feet, or to throw them into the fire.
*****A pocket square is a decorative square of fabric, typically silk or linen, that is displayed in the breast pocket of a jacket or suit. It serves as a fashion accessory to add a touch of style and visual interest to an outfit. Pocket squares can be folded in various ways, and the fabric is often chosen to complement or contrast with the rest of the attire. The exact origins of the pocket square are open to debate, but many believe they began in Ancient Egypt and Greece. These white fabric squares originally served practical purposes, such as maintaining cleanliness or deterring smells. Men would store them out of sight, only pulling them out when needed. Over time, pocket squares became a fashion statement and status symbol. Wealthy men would purchase brightly coloured fabrics, especially in bold red hues, to stand out from the crowd. They also often had infused scents to block unwanted smells. Throughout the Eighteenth Century, the popularity of pocket squares spread across Europe, even making their way into royal outfits. Pocket squares remained popular throughout the Eighteenth Century, but they truly evolved into the modern accessory we know today in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
******A boutonnière is a floral decoration, typically a single flower or bud, worn on the lapel of a tuxedo or suit jacket. While worn frequently in the past to distinguish a gentleman from a common labourer, boutonnières are now usually reserved for special occasions for which formal wear is standard, such as at balls and weddings.
*******The term "wunderkind," meaning a child prodigy or someone who achieves exceptional success at a young age, was invented in the late Nineteenth Century. Specifically, the first documented use in English dates back to 1891, with the term being borrowed from German, where it had been in use earlier.
********The Lady was a British women's magazine. It published its first issue on 19 February 1885 and was in continuous publication until its last issue in April 2025, at which time it was the longest-running women's magazine in Britain. Based in London, it was particularly notable for its classified advertisements for domestic service and child care; it also has extensive listings of holiday properties. It still has an online presence which offers a classified advertisements, jobs board and recruitment service.
*********Julian Wylie (1878 – 1934), originally Julian Ulrich Samuelson Metzenberg, was a British theatrical agent and producer. He began as an accountant and took an interest in entertainment through his brothers, Lauri Wylie and G. B. Samuelson. About 1910, he became the business manager and agent of David Devant, an illusionist, then took on other clients, and formed a partnership with James W. Tate. By the end of his life, he was known as the 'King of Pantomime'.
**********Julian Wylie’s last revue at the London Hippodrome was ‘Better Days’ in 1925. Comprising 19 scenes, Better Days had a try-out at the Liverpool Empire from 9th March 1925 before its debut at the London Hippodrome on 19th March 1925. The stars of the first edition of Better Days were Maisie Gay, Stanley Lupino, Madge Elliott, Connie Emerald with Ruth French and Anatole Wiltzak. The production had the usual Wylie flourish and touch with the dances and ensembles arranged by Edward Dolly and all the gowns and costumes designed by Dolly Tree. The modern gowns were created by Peron and Florence Henry and the costumes by Alias, Clarkson and Betty S. Roberts. ‘Better Days’, only ran for 135 performances and closed in early June, proving to be the last of Wylie’s run of productions at the London Hippodrome.
***********The Hippodrome is a building on the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, London. The name was used for many different theatres and music halls, of which the London Hippodrome is one of only a few survivors. Hippodrome is an archaic word referring to places that host horse races and other forms of equestrian entertainment. The London Hippodrome was opened in 1900. It was designed by Frank Matcham for Moss Empires chaired by Edward Moss and built for £250,000.00 as a hippodrome for circus and variety performances. The venue gave its first show on 15 January 1900, a music hall revue entitled "Giddy Ostend" with Little Tich. The conductor was Georges Jacobi. In 1909, it was reconstructed by Matcham as a music-hall and variety theatre with 1340 seats in stalls, mezzanine, gallery and upper gallery levels. It was here that in 1910 Tchaikovsky's ‘Swan Lake’ received its English première in the form of Act 2 with Olga Preobajinska as the Swan Queen. The Hippodrome hosted the first official jazz gig in the United Kingdom, by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, in 1919.
************Oxford bags were a loose-fitting baggy form of trousers favoured by members of the University of Oxford, especially undergraduates, in England from the mid-1920s to around the 1950s. The style had a more general influence outside the university, including in America, but has been somewhat out of fashion since then. It is sometimes said that the style originated from a ban in 1924 on the wearing of plus fours by Oxford (and Cambridge) undergraduates at lectures. The bagginess allegedly allowed plus fours to be hidden underneath – but the argument is undermined by the fact that the trousers (especially in the early years) were not sufficiently voluminous for this to be done with any success. The original trousers were 22–23 inches (56–58 cm) in circumference at the bottoms but became increasingly larger to 44 inches (110 cm) or more, possibly due to a misunderstanding of the measurement as the width rather than circumference.
*************Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house. Poiret established his own house in 1903. In his first years as an independent couturier, he broke with established conventions of dressmaking and subverted other ones. In 1903, he dismissed the petticoat, and later, in 1906, he did the same with the corset. Poiret made his name with his controversial kimono coat and similar, loose-fitting designs created specifically for an uncorseted, slim figure. Poiret designed flamboyant window displays and threw sensational parties to draw attention to his work. His instinct for marketing and branding was unmatched by any other Parisian designer, although the pioneering fashion shows of the British-based Lucile (Lady Lucy Duff Gordon) had already attracted tremendous publicity. In 1909, he was so famous, Margot Asquith, wife of British prime minister H. H. Asquith, invited him to show his designs at 10 Downing Street. The cheapest garment at the exhibition was thirty guineas, double the annual salary of a scullery maid. Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix presented wide-legged trousers for women in 1910, some months before Poiret, who took credit for being the first to introduce the style.
*************Beach pyjamas, which generally consisted of a pair of wide-legged trousers and a jacket of matching fabric, first gained popularity in the years immediately following the Great War, with evidence pointing to the early 1920s, specifically at European seaside resorts like Deauville in France. It is thought that French fashion designer, Coco Chanel, was also an early proponent of this style.
**************Deauville is a seaside resort on the Côte Fleurie of France’s Normandy region. An upper-class holiday destination since the 1800s, it’s known for its grand casino, golf courses, horse races and American Film Festival. Its wide, sandy beach is backed by Les Planches, a 1920s boardwalk with bathing cabins. The town has chic boutiques, elegant belle epoque villas and half-timbered buildings. As the closest seaside resort to Paris, Deauville is one of the most notable seaside resorts in France. The city and its region of the Côte Fleurie (Flowery Coast) have long been home to the French upper class's seaside houses and is often referred to as the Parisian Riviera.
***************Bognor Regis, also known as Bognor, is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, fifty-six miles south-west of London, twenty-four miles west of Brighton, six miles south-east of Chichester and sixteen miles east of Portsmouth. A seaside resort was developed by Sir Richard Hotham in the late Eighteenth Century on what was a sand and gravel, undeveloped coastline. It has been claimed that Hotham and his new resort are portrayed in Jane Austen's unfinished novel ‘Sanditon’. The resort grew slowly in the first half of the Nineteenth Century but grew rapidly following the coming of the railway in 1864.
This 1920s upper-class domestic scene is different to what you may think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Lettice’s tea set sitting on the coffee table is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The very realistic looking chocolate sponge cake topped with creamy icing and strawberries has been made from polymer clay and was made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The green tinged bowl behind the tea set is made of glass and has been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. Made by the Little Green Workshop who specialise in high-end artisan miniatures, the black leather diary with the silver clasp is actually bound and has pages inside. The silver pen with the pearl end is also from the Little Green Workshop.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out. The vase of yellow tiger lilies and daisies on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. The vase of roses and lilies in the tall white vase on the table to the right of the photo was also made by hand, by Falcon Miniatures who are renowned for their realistic 1:12 size miniatures.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden chair is a Chippendale design and has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric. The mirror backed back japanned china cabinet is Chippendale too. On its glass shelves sit pieces of miniature Limoges porcelain including jugs, teacups and saucers, many of which I have had since I was a child.
To the left of the Chippendale chair stands a blanc de chine Chinese porcelain vase, and next to it, a Chinese screen. The Chinese folding screen I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.
The painting in the gilt frame is made by Amber’s Miniatures in America. The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug. 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.
The contrast in texture from 1) creamy cool and smooth in varying degrees and thicknesses (airy gelatin based mousse, whipped mildly sweetened cream, smooth and matcha rich green tea gelato) to 2) soft and sticky (a pair of super chewy and delightfully bouncy mochi (sticky rice cakes)) to 3) dense (stewed red beans) to 4) crunchy dry cornflakes to 5) spongy moist (castella cake cubes) was incredible . The flavour contrasts were also exciting in the mouth: mild (cream), slightly sweetened and tannic (green tea sweets), saccharine pops (red bean), and toasty (cornflakes).
This simple yet complex parfait was a great combination of things that were neither too sweet nor outrageous and strange, but together, quite eyeopening (cornflakes? Wow! Cornflakes). Together, however, it was harmony. Scrumptious, fantastic, and a great snack. Yes, cornflakes and all.
Composition: Matcha green tea mousse cake, sweetened red bean, corn flakes, green tea gelato, mochi, sponge cake and whipped cream.