Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, had organised a romantic dinner at the Savoy* for he and Lettice to celebrate his birthday. However, when Lettice arrived, she was confronted not with the smiling face of her beau, but the haughty and cruel spectre of his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia. Lady Zinnia, and Selwyn’s Uncle Bertrand had been attempting to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia had, up until that moment been snubbing Lettice, so Selwyn and Lettice arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela were also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn could spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia wouldn’t be able to avoid Lettice any longer. Zinnia is a woman who likes intrigue and revenge, and the revenge she launched upon Lettice that evening at the Savoy was bitterly harsh and painful. With a cold and calculating smile Lady Zinna announced that she had packed Selwyn off to Durban in South Africa for a year. She made a pact with her son: if he went away for a year, a year during which he agreed neither to see, nor correspond with Lettice, if he comes back and doesn’t feel the same way about her as he did when he left, he agreed that he will marry Pamela, just as Bertrand and Lady Zinnia planned. If however, he still feels the same way about Lettice when he returns, Lady Zinnia agreed that she would concede and will allow him to marry her.
Leaving London by train that very evening, Lettice returned home to Glynes, where she stayed for a week, moving numbly about the familiar rooms of the grand Georgian country house, reading books from her father’s library distractedly to pass the time, whilst her father fed her, her favourite Scottish shortbreads in a vain effort to cheer her up. However, rather than assuage her broken heart, her father’s ministrations only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life: keep designing interiors, keep shopping and most importantly, keep attending social functions where there are plenty of press photographers. “You may not be permitted to write to Selwyn,” Lady Sadie said wisely. “But Zinnia said nothing about the newspapers not writing about your plight or your feelings on your behest. Let them tell Selwyn that you still love him and are waiting for him. They get the London papers in Durban just as much as they get them here, and Zinnia won’t be able to stop a lovesick and homesick young man flipping to the society pages as he seeks solace in the faces of familiar names and faces, and thus seeing you and reading your words of commitment to him that you share through the newspaper men. Tell them that you are waiting patiently for Selwyn’s return.”
Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls in the lead up to the festive season. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and was welcomed home with open and loving arms by her family for Christmas and the New Year. On New Year’s Eve, Lally, sitting next to Lettice, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, and at Dorrington House with her sister and brother-in-law, she enjoyed quiet pursuits, spending quality time with her niece and nephews in the nursery, strolling the gardens with her sister or simply curling up in a window seat and reading.
However all this changed with a letter from her Aunt Egg in London, summoning Lettice back to the capital and into society in general. Through her social connections, Aunt Egg has contrived an invitation for Lettice and her married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend parties at Gossington in Scotland: the country residence of Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.
The trio set off from London in Dickie and Margot’s Brunswick green 1922 Lea Francis** four seater tourer on a circuitous journey to take in some of the picturesque country villages along the way, much to Margot’s horror, as she loathes the countryside, claiming it to be populated by too many cattle and women as bovine as the animals they tend. Her horror only intensified when the motor of the Lea Francis overheated in a quiet country lane outside of York surrounded by hedgerows and cattle in green rolling fields, forcing them to wait for a passing farmer to help arrange their rescue. Now we find ourselves in the Saloon Lounge of a public house in York where Lettice, Margot and Dickie are taking luncheon whilst the York mechanic the Lea Francis was pushed to by the obliging farmer and his helpful farmhands, looks at the motor’s engine.
As a burst of jovial laughter comes from the popular Public Bar, Lettice looks around the Saloon Lounge. They are the only patrons in the spacious room, usually reserved for more snobbish clientèle, which is decorated in a tasteful version of traditional country kitchen style with comfortable mismatched cottage style chairs clustered around tables, throw rugs on the flagstone floor and a liberal scattering of knick-knacks along the fireplace mantle. The publican somewhat begrudgingly set a lacklustre fire going in the grate of the large open fireplace for his three upper-class patrons who preferred to sit separately from all the drinkers in the Public Bar. Brass ashtrays sit clean and gleaming on the tables around them, waiting for patrons, whilst on their own table, clean blue and white crockery has been set out by the publican’s somewhat surly wife.
“Here we are,” Dicke says cheerfully, returning from the hatch in the wall that connects the bar of Public Bar to the Saloon Lounge, and placing three drinks on the table before them. “Port and lemons for the ladies,” He places a glass before his wife and one before Lettice with a flourish. “And a jug of stout for me.”
“I would have preferred a gin and tonic, Dickie.” Margot says despondently as she stares critically at the glass of dark fortified alcohol with a slice of lemon floating on its surface on the dark timber tabletop before her.
Sighing, Dickie sinks onto the ladderback chair next to his grumbling wife. “I don’t think they have an American Bar here, Margot my love, nor a cocktail hour.”
“A gin and tonic is hardly a cocktail!” Margot scoffs dismissively.
“Be that as it may, parochial tastes do not extend to Gordon’s Gin, my love.” Dickie adds as he purs thick black stout from the silver jug into his glass and picks it up. Taking a sip he adds, “And before you ask, they didn’t have champagne either.”
“All the more reason not to visit the country.” Margot replies, a defiant timbre to her voice.
“Oh Margot, York is hardly the country.” Lettice says with a light hearted laugh. “It’s the county town of Yorkshire.”
“Well,” Margot says, picking up her glass and eyeing it warily before taking a tentative sip. “It’s hardly a metropolitan borough if this establishment cannot even supply gin or champagne.”
“Anyone would think you two had never set foot in a public house before.” Lettice continues, looking at her friends as she speaks. They return her gaze with looks of surprise.
“And you have, Lettice darling?” Dickie asks in shock.
“Well yes of course I have, Dickie darling.” she answers, as surprised by his reaction as he is by the fact that she has been in such an establishment before. “Don’t tell me you’ve never set foot in a village public house before?”
“But you’re a viscount’s daughter, Lettice darling!” Margot says aghast.
“Well yes, I am, and as a member of the family of the Big House, there is all the more reason for me to be familiar with the haunts of the people of the village. Where else do you find out what people are really thinking and saying?”
“Well, I must say, I’m shocked, Lettice.” Dickie replies, taking another sip of stout, licking his lips as he enjoys the yeasty flavour.
“And I’m shocked that you never have, Dickie! Snobbery is one thing, but total separation from the locals is another.”
“Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black, Lettice darling? Look around you. We are the only three people in here, and I didn’t hear you opine that we should sit in the Public Bar when Margot and I suggested sitting in the Saloon Bar.”
“Well, we aren’t locals here, Dickie, and I wouldn’t want our out-of-place presence to bother the regular drinkers in the Public Bar. However,” Lettice adds. “At home in Glynes Village, I would have no such reservations. I know the Village Green, its publican Mr. Gray, and all its patrons very well.”
“But what about deference and respect for the family of the Big House?” Margot asks.
“Oh pooh to that!” Lettice retorts. She looks at her best friend and smiles at her. “I don’t expect you to understand, Margot darling, since you grew up in London, but Dickie should know better.” She turns her attentions to her other friend. “It is always best to stay in good in the court of public opinion, especially with the locals. A level of separation is appropriate, but it is poor judgement to completely isolate yourself.”
“I don’t remember your father ever setting foot in a public house, Dickie.” Margot addresses her husband. “Do you?”
“Indeed no. Father would never lower himself to cross the threshold of a public house.” Dickie pauses. “Thinking of which, he’d be horrified to hear that we have, Margot, so best not say anything to him or Mamma.”
“Oh, rest assured that I shall be the soul of discretion, my love.” Margot affirms, raising her palms up before her chest. “Not a word about this whole sorry incident shall pass my lips.”
“But they are farmers, Lettice!” Dickie exclaims, resuming his conversation with Lettice.
“Who are?” Lettice asks, looking around.
“The men drinking in your Village Green public house! Don’t be obtuse, darling.”
“Not all of them are. There are village shopkeepers too, the schoolmaster, the church verger and occasionally the local doctor and the vicar.”
“But they all make their living off your lands.” Dickie splutters. “How can you pretend to be on the same social standing as them?”
“I don’t Dickie. I wouldn’t for one moment presume to insult their intelligence by suggesting that we were equals, but by being seen in a place that is familiar to them, Pater, Leslie and I all show that we are interested in the welfare of the village and its occupants. Not everyone is a tenant farmer anymore. Have you forgotten that your father is amongst the landed gentry discreetly selling off parcels of land to the men whose families farmed the land for them for generations before them?” She sips her port and lemon. “Don’t deny it, Dickie!” She points her finger at her friend.
“I don’t,” he defends. “At least not in the company of those here present, but…”
“But what, Dickie? Even if they don’t, each man represents a vote. As you well know, we now have for the first time in our history, a Labour government***…”
“I don’t see why we have to talk politics, Lettice, when we don’t even have the vote****.” Margot interjects.
“Because it won’t always be that way, Margot. Whether you like them or not, the new government have some very forward thinking ideas about women voters. One day, you and I will have our say on who governs this great country of ours.”
“It’s just pollical pot rattling to get votes,” Dicke scoffs. “All politicians do it. They won’t give the vote to women under thirty.”
“Not yet, maybe,” Lettice acknowledges. “But one day soon, both parties will have to accept women voters make up the greater portion of the British public. They will need our vote.” Lettice wags her finger first at Dickie and then at Margot as she looks at them seriously. “You mark words. The world is changing, and the days of deference to the family of the Big House are coming to an end.”
“Not for Father.”
“Your father isn’t immune, even if he is a marquis, Dickie. Not everyone is as deferential as your Mr. and Mrs. Trevethan who are of the generation that is fast disappearing. There has been a war, and it’s changed the way the classes look at themselves and one another.”
At that moment, the door leading from the kitchens opens. Looking to the door as it creaks open noisily on its hinges, a plump woman with her mousy brown hair in a lose chignon at the nape of her neck, wearing a crisply starched white apron over a pretty printed cotton dress, walks through carrying a wooden tray. Although weighed down heavily with a tureen and several bowls of food, her muscular arms, which bear testament to the hard graft she does behind the scenes in the public house, manage to carry it effortlessly as she walks across the room. The trio fall silent as her heavy footfalls grow louder as she approaches the table.
The publican’s wife slips the tray expertly onto the edge of the worn round tabletop which is full of nicks, dints and scratches from many years of use. She unloads a large two handled tureen decorated with pretty blue roses, a deep oval brown pottery casserole dish, a white bowl and a plate on which stands a freshly baked loaf dusted with flour, placing them all in the middle of the table of diners. “Boiled new potatoes,” she says in a broad accent indicating to the tureen. “Beef stew with suet dumplings,” she adds, nodding at the casserole dish. “And boiled vegetables.” she indicates to the white bowl brimming with bright peas and a smattering of carrots. “Will there be anything else?”
Dicke looks with hungry eyes at the steaming bowls set on the table before them before replying, “No, no, my good woman.” He then reaches into his cherry red satin waistcoat beneath his houndstooth jacket and pulls out a few coins. Flipping them over in his hands he sees three thuppences and two shillings. He returns two the thruppences and both the shillings to his waistcoat pocket but hands over the remaining thruppence. “For your trouble.”
The publican’s wife looks down at the tarnished thruppence featuring the profile of King George V in his coronation crown and frowns, her doughy features hardening in displeasure.
“Thank you Mrs. err?” Lettice asks in an effort to placate the publican’s wife.
“Wright.” the publican’s wife replies monosyllabically without a smile as she looks with dark eyes upon Lettice’s apologetic face. “Mrs. Wright.” She utters each syllable with contempt.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wright.” Lettice says politely.
Mrs. Wright drops the coin unceremoniously into her apron pocket and without a word, spins around and walks away. Having been taught since childhood not to speak in front of the servants, all three diners remain silent in their places at the table until the door closes behind her with a thud.
“Well!” Dickie announces with a shake of his shoulders. “What a thoroughly unpleasant woman! Anyone might have thought I’d slapped her in the face.”
“You may just as well have.” Lettice says.
“What?” Dickie queries.
“Oh Dickie!” Margot shakes her head at her husband.
“What my love?”
“I cannot believe you called her ‘my good woman’.” she replies.
“Whatever is wrong with that?”
“It’s awfully feudal, my darling.” Margot giggles. “She isn’t Your Lordship’s serf, you know?”
“And you only paid her a thruppence tip.” Lettice adds. “No wonder she and her husband detest us so. Having to light a fire in here for us and serve us a meal, all for a feudal reference to her existence and thruppenny bit from her ‘social betters’.”
“I did pay in advance for our luncheon, and our drinks, Lettice darling.” Dickie assures his friend. “It’s highly irregular.”
“Perhaps they know of our family’s penurious circumstances.” Margot quips.
Lettice joins Margot in shaking her head at Dickie. “You weren’t listening to a thing I said about the days of deference coming to an end, were you Dickie?”
“Yes I was, Lettice darling. I just don’t happen to agree with your revolutionary ideas.”
“I’m hardly a revolutionary, Dickie darling.”
“I’m sure the Tsar said the same about the Bolsheviks, and look what happened to him.”
“Dickie, Margot is right: these people aren’t your serfs.” Lettice says in exasperation. “They aren’t even your servants.”
“Yes, well,” Dickie huffs. “I’d never dare call Hilda ‘my good woman’. She would probably storm out, she’s so full of revolutionary ideas thanks to the grocer’s lad who is stepping out with you Edith, Lettice. He’s a very bad influence on her.”
“Frank Leadbetter has nothing to do with it, Dickie. The people of England have been through a lot over the last decade. Those who came home after the war, or who fought on the home front, are questioning whether the old pre-war ways are the right ways anymore.” Lettice stares directly at her friend. “It woke something up in them that wasn’t evident before.”
“Yes, they don’t know their place.” Dickie replies sulkily.
“No, it’s discontentment with their lot. They want more from their lives in this post-war era, and quite frankly I don’t blame them.” Lettice admits. “They all fought on the front lines, whilst their social superiors gave directions from a respectably safe distance, behind a desk. How many officers died..”
“Plenty, like Harry!” Dickie spits hotly.
“Let’s not quarrel over this, Dickie, please!” Lettice implores. “How many officers died defending the Empire compared with the number of Tommies? Very few. I know your brother died at Ypres…”
“God bless Harry!” Marguerite raises her glass.
“God bless Harry!” Lettice and Dickie raise their glasses in reply.
“But he was a rarity. Try seeing it from the Tommies’ perspective: the Mr. Wrights of this world.” Lettice glances to the servery, where Mr. Wright the publican can just be seen drawing a pint for one of his customers in the Public Bar. “They deserve more after the sacrifices they made, and being deferential to those who didn’t sacrifice as much during the conflict doesn’t sit well with them. Like I said before, it is better to look good in the court of public opinion and take a few knocks now and then, than it is to remain untouchable in an ivory tower. If you do that, you’ll make yourself irrelevant.”
“You talk as though we as a class are already irrelevant, Lettice darling.” Dicke cocks an eyebrow. “Or at the very least, redundant.”
“Not at all, Dickie.” Lettice retorts. “All I am saying is that we have to be adaptable to change in this changing world of ours. What did I read recently?” Lettice contemplates her words for a moment before continuing. “Something along the lines of ‘my class is on the way up and yours is on the down’.”
“Did you read that on a Socialist pamphlet, Lettice darling?” Dickie asks.
Lettice gives him a withering look.
“And all this talk of class breakdown from the woman who was horrified that she might have been replaced in Gerald’s affections by a middle-class milliner from Putney.” Margot pats the smart russet cloche made for her by Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford.
Lettice looks at Margot and then laughs at her wry observation of Lettice’s own actions and motivations. “I’ve forgiven Harriet her middle-class roots.”
“Now you know that you are still Gerald’s best lady friend.” Margot adds cheekily.
Margot’s remark breaks the tension between Lettice and Dickie, and the three start to help themselves to luncheon from the bowls in front of them, in buffet style, a rare and in the case of Dickie and Margot, a unique experience.
“You should get on well with Lady Caxton, Lettice,” Dickie laughs as he spoons steaming new potatoes onto his blue and white dinner plate. “From what I can gather, she’s a bit of a revolutionary thinker herself.”
*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
**Lea and G. I. Francis started the business in Coventry in 1895. They branched out into car manufacturing in 1903 and motorcycles in 1911. Lea-Francis built cars under licence for the Singer company. In 1919, they started to build their own cars from bought-in components. From 1922, Lea-Francis formed a business relationship with Vulcan of Southport sharing manufacturing and dealers. Vulcan supplied bodies to Lea-Francis and in return received gearboxes and steering gear. Two six-cylinder Vulcan-designed and manufactured cars were marketed as Lea-Francis 14/40 and 16/60 as well as Vulcans. The association ended in 1928 when Vulcan stopped making cars. The company had a chequered history with some notable motorcycles and cars, but financial difficulties surfaced on a regular basis. The Hillfields site was abandoned in 1937 when it was sold by the receiver and a new company, under a slightly different name, moved to Much Park Street in Coventry. It survived there until 1962 when the company finally closed.
***On the 22nd of January, Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister in Britain, leading a minority government, following Stanley Baldwin’s resignation after his government lost a vote of no confidence in the debate on the King’s Speech in January 1924. King George V called on Ramsay MacDonald to form a minority Labour government, with the tacit support of the Liberals under Asquith from the corner benches. On the 22nd of January 1924, he took office as the first Labour Prime Minister, the first from a working-class background and one of the very few without a university education. The Government lasted only nine months and did not have a majority in either House of the Parliament, but it was still able to support the unemployed with the extension of benefits and amendments to the Insurance Acts. The Housing Act was also passed during this first term of a Labour government, which greatly expanded municipal housing for low paid workers.
****In 1924 when this story is set, not every woman in Britain had the right to vote. In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of thirty who met a property qualification to vote. Although eight and a half million women met this criteria, it was only about two-thirds of the total population of women in Britain. It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over twenty-one were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to fifteen million.
Though this may be the perfect example of an interwar public house, things are not entirely as you may suppose, for this scene is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection,.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the table, the bread, beef stew in its casserole dish, and the butter in the glass dish have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The bowl of peas and carrots, the tureen, the blue and white crockery, the glass of stout and the small silver jug all came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The cutlery and the napkins I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The glasses of port are made from real glass. I acquired them, along with small slivers of lemon floating on their surfaces from miniature stockists on E-Bay.
The table and the two ladderback chairs at the table, I have had since I was a child. The Windsor chairs in the background are both hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniatures which came from America. Unfortunately, the artists did not carve their name under the seats, but they are definitely unmarked artisan pieces.
The Georgian style fireplace with its heavy wooden surround and deep mantle in the background was made by Town Hall Miniatures. The silverware that clutters the mantlepiece come from various different suppliers. The two Georgian style ale jugs and the two large water pitchers were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The candlesticks at either end of the mantle are 1:12 artisan miniatures made of sterling silver by an unknown artist. The plates along the back of the mantle and hanging on the wall came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. The two Staffordshire dogs and the Victorian Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) vase were hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys.
The brass candlesticks and ashtrays in the background come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
The stained glass window in the background is printed from a photo I took of the stained glass of the Metropolitan Hotel in North Melbourne. It is early Twentieth Century stained glass, and whilst there may not be a Metropolitan Hotel in York, it does fit in nicely in the scene
