Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today, we are in the true preserve of Lady Southgate in Wickham Place, the one room that she has complete control over – the morning room. It is a large, yet comfortable and cosy room decorated with glittering Edwardian clutter - china and other bibelots - and floral soft furnishings of her choosing and is truly a feminine space. It’s the perfect place for arranging flowers, and that is what we find Lady Southgate doing, accompanied most unwillingly by her sister-in-law, Cecily.
“Nancy was very complimentary about the flower arrangements at the ambassador’s dinner we held.” Lady Southgate remarks as she peruses blooms for suitability from a basket full of flowers on the table before her.
“Who?” Cecily asks, not looking up from the newspaper with which she has ensconced herself comfortably into Lady Southgate’s floral settee.
“Oh Cecily!” Lady Southgate scoffs. “Nancy: Lady Astor!”
“Well bully for her.” Cecily replies absently and without interest. “They were your doing, not mine.”
“Cecily, I don’t see why you have to be so peevish about flower arranging,” Lady Southgate quips over her shoulder as she takes out a purple and lilac foxglove bloom and trims the stem with her shears. “It’s a very relaxing pursuit.”
“Vera, wouldn’t you rather read those newspapers you are using to protect the tabletop, than resign them to the bin where they are going?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with flower arranging, Cecily.” Lady Southgate replies testily. “Anyway, these are old newspapers that would have been used by the housemaids to start the fire in here if I hadn’t used them for this.” She takes another foxglove from the basket and trims the stem. “And I’ll have you know that I do read the newspaper. Withers brings me ‘The Mirror’ every morning.”
“I don’t mean read the society pages, or scan them for the latest bargains at Selfridges, Vera!” Cecily looks up through her glasses perched on her nose and over the top of the ‘Daily Express’ she has open before her. “I’m taking about reading about things that matter!”
“Such as?”
Cecily lets the paper fall and continues animatedly, “Like the opening of the first British labour exchange*, or the new government in Greece**, or the first night time flight in England***.”
“And why should I care about any of that?” Lady Southgate mutters. “As if the new government in Greece has any influence on my life, or as if I need to worry about a labour exchange! Preposterous!” She snorts.
“Any more than I need to worry about flower arranging, Vera.” Cecily sinks back onto the settee and raises the broadsheet which she ruffles noisily, bristling with irritation at her sister-in-law’s flippant comments.
“Well, you should care about flower arranging, Cecily!” Lady Southgate reaches for a delicate fluted cranberry glass vase with gilding around its mouth. “Any girl of your age, and in your position,” She turns and waves her shears admonishingly at Cecily’s recumbent figure. “Should care about it!”
“I care a great deal more about the suffragette movement than flower arranging.” Cecily mutters.
“Yes, well I know your opinions on that,” Lady Southgate puts one of the foxgloves into the vase. “I found that copy ‘Votes for Women’ in your parlour the other week.”
“Ah, so you do read then, Vera!” Cecily clucks triumphantly.
“I said I found it, not that I read it, Cecily.” Lady Southgate replies, thrusting a second foxglove bloom with unnecessary force into the vase. “You shouldn’t be meddling with women’s suffrage. You are a debutante now. This will be your sec…”
“I know, Vera, my second Season,” Cecily groans as her eyes rise to the ornate crystal chandelier overhead. “You don’t need to remind me.”
“Well then, you need to make yourself more.. more,”
“Desirable?”
“Decorous!” Lady Southgate responds quickly, snapping the stem of a daffodil in frustration at her sister-in-law’s obstinance. “Or else we shall have to book you a berth on the next P&O and pack you off to India to find a suitable husband. A jeune fille à marier won’t survive her third London Season without a suitable match.”
“And arranging tulips, roses and daffodils will help me find the husband I’m told I should have?”
“Flower arranging is an art, Cecily, like embroidery, music and singing.”
“Best book me a passage to India then, Vera, as I fail on all of those, except embroidery.” She closes the newspaper, folds it in half and places it in defeat across her lap. She sighs. “And as Mamma points out, I make up in unnecessary intelligence what I lack in necessary beauty.”
“Oh pooh!” Lady Southgate artfully teases the foxglove blooms into place in the fluted glass vase. “Ignore Lydia, Cecily. Everyone pales against her legendary beauty, which she wears like the peeress’ robes she is no longer entitled to!”
“At least I will find more adventure in India than in a London season,” Cecily mutters quietly to herself.
“There!” Lady Southgate sighs as she stands back and looks proudly at the vases of flowers she has filled with roses, tulips and foxgloves. “See how satisfying the results of arranging flowers can be.”
“Yes Vera,” Cecily replies noncommittally as she raises the newspaper again.
*The first British labour exchange opened on the first of February 1910.
**The Dragoumis government was formed in Greece on the first of February 1910.
***The first night air flight by Claude Grahame-White happened in England on the twenty-eighth of April 1910.
The theme for “Smile on Saturday” this week is “vase”. I have many lovely antique vases that I could photograph, so I picked these ten. However, this Edwardian upper-class domestic scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection. I hope that you like it.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The four glass vases: two cranberry glass and two clear glass, were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. The detail in each vase is especially fine. If you look closely, you will see that they are decorated with fluting, frills and latticework. The porcelain vase on the far right with a pink rose painted on it is a 1950s Limoges vase. The rose has been painted on it by hand, and it is stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. This treasure I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. The other porcelain vases with printed flowers on them come from various online miniature stockists on EBay.
The red roses on the left of the photo and the yellow and cream roses on the right-hand side are all handmade by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. The tulips, daffodils and foxgloves are all very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.
The shears with black handles open and close. Made of metal, they came from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom.
The Edwardian British newspapers that the vases, shears and flowers stand on are 1:12 size copies of ‘The Mirror’, the ‘Daily Express’ and ‘The Tattler’ made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
