Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we have not strayed far from Cavendish Mews, but are far enough away in her mind that Lettice has chosen to take a taxi, hailed for her by her maid Edith from the nearby square, to take her to Ridgmount Gardens in the nearby artistic and bohemian suburb of Bloomsbury. Lettice is redecorating the pied-à-terre* of Miss Phoebe Chambers, niece and ward of Lady Gladys Caxton. Through her social connections, Lettice’s Aunt Egg contrived an invitation for Lettice to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their weekend parties at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John. Over the course of the weekend, Lettice was coerced into accepting Lady Gladys’ request that she redecorate Phoebe’s small London flat. Phoebe, upon coming of age inherited the flat, which had belonged to her parents, Reginald and Marjorie Chambers, who died out in India when Phoebe was still a little girl. The flat was held in trust by Lady Gladys until her ward came of age. When Phoebe decided to pursue a career in garden design and was accepted by a school in London closely associated with the Royal Society, she started living part time in Bloomsbury. Lady Gladys felt that the flat is too old fashioned and outdated for a young girl like Phoebe, and managed to get Lettice to agree to redecorate it. However, throughout the whole affair, Lettice has felt that Lady Gladys has ulterior motives for wanting the pied-à-terre redecorated.
As the taxi pulls up outside the block of red brick Edwardian flats in which Pheobe lives, Lettice can see a hive of activity taking place. A lorry emblazoned with Blessed Upholsterers in bold red letters is parked out the front and she is just in time to see a man carrying a standard lamp down the ramp set at the back of the lorry and through the wrought iron gate leading up to the entrance to the block. Other men, painters and decorators judging by their paint splattered overalls are carrying ladders and pots of paint back to a lorry parked further down the street.
“That’ll be six and fourpence, mum.” the taxi driver says through the glass divider between the driver’s compartment and the passenger carriage as he leans back in his seat. Lettice pays the driver and tips him before stepping out into the sunshine.
“Ahh, Miss Chetwynd!” a moustached man in blue overalls and a flat tweed workman’s cap calls across the street with a beaming smile as he sees Lettice step out of the taxi.
Lettice crosses the street. “There’s no need to caterwaul my name across the thoroughfare, Mr. Clarke.” Lettice admonishes him.
“I’m sorry, Miss Chetwynd.” he replies meekly. “I’m glad you’re here all the same though. Could you sigh this?” He holds out a small wooden clipboard and pen towards her.
“Are your men done yet?” Lettice asks the manager of the crew of men hired by Lettice to paint Phoebe’s flat as she eyes the paper foisted under her nose unceremoniously.
“Well, not quite yet, Miss Chetwynd, but nearly.” She gives him a withering look, so he explains, “There’s the bathroom still to finish and the hallway.”
“Then I’m not signing for anything, Mr. Clarke.” Lettice replies breezily, as she slips past him.
“But Miss!” Mr. Clarke protests.
Lettice stops and turns back to face the man. “Don’t ‘but miss’ me. I shan’t be signing anything until the job is done to my satisfaction, Mr. Clarke.” she affirms. “You know this. Don’t ask me to sign until the work is complete.” She pauses. “Unless of course you want me to revise my arrangement with you as my painters of choice.”
“Oh no, Miss Chetwynd. Very sorry Miss Chetwynd.” he stammers.
“And take off your hat when you talk to me for goodness sake!” Lettice says as she strides away from him with purposeful steps. “I’m your employer, not your doxy down at the pub.”
“Yes Miss Chetwynd.” He snatches the cap from his head apologetically and watches as Lettice walks up the steps leading to the gates entrance to the narrow garden of the block of flats, a bright blot of cherry red wool crepe amidst the muddy browns and paint splattered blues of the workmen’s overalls, a white, red and blue silk scarf waving over her shoulder in her wake as she ascends the steps in her patent red leather shoes.
“Mornin’ Miss Chetwynd!” a removalist addresses Lettice, tapping the edge of his cap in deference as he passes her on the path.
“Good morning.” she replies politely with an acknowledging nod, peeling of her gloves as she walks, having no idea which of Mr. Blessed’s men it was she just greeted.
She enters the flat’s vestibule and makes her way upstairs towards Phoebe’s pied-à-terre, the smell of paint leading her up the polished concrete staircase to the second floor landing. The burble of deep masculine voices and laughter echoes around the hall through the open door of the flat.
“Decoration day is here at last, Miss Chetwynd.” a friendly male voice greets her as she takes the final few steps up to the landing.
“Good morning, Mr. Meadows.” Lettice replies breezily, her painted lips breaking into a broad smile of recognition as she glimpses a man in a brown suit standing at the top of the stairs, his hat in one hand and a clipboard in the other. “And aren’t we grateful?”
“The day of everything being set up in readiness for the owners is always a day of stresses and exhaustion, Miss Chetwynd, but yes, also a day of gratitude for it all culminating in a job well done.” Mr. Meadows replies. “And I’m sure it will be a job well done, Miss Chetwynd.”
“I do hope you’re right, Mr. Meadows. I suppose you want my signature too?” Lettice asks as she catches her breath after ascending the two flights of stairs.
“If you would, Miss Chetwynd.” He proffers her a clipboard with a delivery notice on it. “All the rugs are rolled up, ready to be unfurled in every room. Will your men be able to manage without my men’s help? I can afford to spare one or two for the afternoon if you need.”
“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Blessed and his chaps will be fine, Mr. Meadows.” She accepts the clipboard and Mr. Meadows’ pen. Thank you for the thought though.” She looks for the place to sign. “Do you like it?” she asks as she applies her curlicued signature to the dotted line.
“Rather, Miss Chetwynd. I wish I were living here.” He looks up to the lofty ceiling above featuring a glassed in lightwell. “Especially after you have worked your redecoration with all the bits and bobs inside. I’ve no doubt the owners will be delighted.”
“It’s more the owner’s aunt that I’m concerned likes it, Mr. Meadows.” she replies with a knowing look and arched eyebrows, handing back the clipboard and pen.
“Well then, let’s hope she does, Miss Chetwynd.” he replies with a cheerful smile.
“Is it a frightful mess in there?” Lettice rolls her eyes towards the pied-à-terre’s open door.
“No more than usual.” Mr. Meadows replies rather matter-of-factly. “In fact, I’d say less than usual, owing to the fact that this is smaller than some of your other redecorations.”
“Good.” Lettice sighs.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Meadows replies, slipping past her with his clipboard nestled under his left arm, waving his brown derby momentarily in his wake before placing it back upon his head.
“Be careful! Make sure you have that drop sheet right up against the edge of the wainscot!” Lettice chides one of the painter’s men as she walks up the narrow hallway of the flat, pointing with a manicured finger to a gap between a paint splattered canvas sheet and the wall, through which the richly stained flooring appears. As she hurries on down the hallway skirting teachests and other painters, decorators and removalists, she recalls how bitterly Mrs. Bevan, the housekeeper of Mr. and Mrs, Gifford’s home in Wiltshire, Arkwright Bury, quipped about the paint and glue splatters left on the floor of the Pagoda Room after Lettice’s London decorators had finished hanging paper and repainting the wainscots. She mutters to herself, “Mrs. Bevan may not be here, and Pheobe may be indifferent to the redecoration, but Gladys has sharp eyes, and I’ve no doubt she’ll spot the smallest drop of paint left on the floor.”
Lettice steps into the drawing room of the pied-à-terre and winces momentarily as her eyes adjust from the darkness of the hallway to the brilliant morning illumination flooding the room through the east facing windows, now stripped of their hangings. The light bounces off the pale mint green now gracing the walls of the flat, in place of the faded mustard yellow of before. Closing her eyes she takes a deep breath and inhales the mixture of scents about the room: fresh paint, the smell of new upholstery and carpets, beeswax and fresh air blowing in through the open windows. She sighs with satisfaction.
“It’s a good colour, Miss.” comes the familiar voice of Lettice’s furniture restorer and upholsterer from Croydon, Christopher Blessed.
Opening her eyes, Lettice notices the muscular young man with blonde hair in his workman’s overalls standing in a corner of the room. “Chris!” she says with familiarity.
“You chose well, Miss.” Mr. Blessed adds with a smile, indicating around the empty walls. “It makes this room so much fresher than it was with that old fusty yellow from before.”
“Well, someone had to.” Lettice huffs as she walks across the room, around the edge of an eau de nil coloured sofa the same style as that she acquired for Margot and Dickie Channon’s Cornwall house, and one of Mr. Meadow’s furled up rugs, avoiding an open stepladder and edging past boxes and crates full of Pheobe’s books. “Goodness knows it was hard enough to get Pheobe to express an opinion about anything.” She sighs again, only this time with frustration at the thought of the reluctant young lady whose pied-à-terre this is not showing any interest in any of the colour swatches she showed her in the lead up to the redecoration. “Not too cold, Chris?”
“No, Miss.” he says with a dismissive wave. “Bright and breezy, I’d call it. It will make it look much bigger in here, and more modern, and that’s what the young lady wanted, wasn’t it?”
“More like what Lady Gladys wanted.”
“Well, she’s the one footing the bills, isn’t she, Miss?” When Lettice nods shallowly, he goes on. “Then it’s her opinion that counts.”
“I suppose so, Chris.” Lettice sighs again. “Oh, I ran into Mr. Meadows on the landing. He offered me a couple of his men to help roll out the carpets, but I said no, as I thought your crew could manage.”
“He already offered them to me, Miss, and I told him, no thank you. Leave it all to me and my men. With your guidance, we’ll have this place shipshape and Bristol fashion** before the day is done.”
“Right you are, then, Chris.” Lettice agrees brightly. “My gloves are off. Let’s get started then, whilst Mr. Clarke’s men finish painting the hallway and the bathroom.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Miss. Where do you want to begin, then?”
“Well,” Lettice looks around. “We may as well start in here, mightn’t we.”
“Right you are, Miss. I got those couches and chairs, just like you commissioned me to make for Lady Channon.”
“Sofas, Chris,” Lettice corrects*** her upholsterer.
“Sorry.” Mr. Blessed apologises. “Sofas, Miss”
“And Mrs. Channon isn’t a marchioness yet, Chris.” Lettice smiles. “Don’t give her airs and graces just yet. She has enough as it is.” She giggles. “She’d love to be called Lady Channon.”
Lettice distractedly taps the wooden ball foot of an upturned footstool sitting squatly on the end of one of the eau de nil sofas.
“Something wrong, Miss?” Mr. Blessed asks as he hoists up a heavy box full of Pheobe’s books and photographs.
“Oh, I just have this feeling, Chris.”
“Feeling, Miss?” Mr. Blessed lowers the box again back atop several others stacked in the centre of the room.
“It’s probably foolish of me,” Lettice snorts dismissively.
“But?”
“Well,” She turns and faces her employee. “I just can’t help but feel that Lady Gladys is taking over and making all the decisions about Pheobe… err, I mean Miss Chambers’ flat.”
“Well, you have said many times before, in fact you even said it just then, that Miss Chambers doesn’t seem to want to be involved in the redecoration.”
“And that’s my point. I don’t think she actually wants it redecorated at all: Lady Gladys does.”
“Well, you also said that Lady Gladys is the one footing the bills for all this,” Mr. Blessed gesticulates expansively around him. “So, I don’t see what the problem is.”
Lettice moves towards the open wooden crate Mr. Blessed had hoisted up before and starts rifling through the contents. “The problem as I see it, is that Lady Gladys is taking advantage of her ward’s lack of interest.” She flips through photographs that had sat atop the mantle when Lettice visited the pied-à-terre with Lady Gladys for the first time. “In fact, the more I get to know Lady Gladys, the more I’m starting to think that she is part if the reason why Miss Chambers expresses as little an opinion as she does.”
“What do you mean, Miss?”
“It seems to me that Lady Gladys is very used to getting her own way, and is equally adept at crushing dissent: wearing people down until they finally agree, as it were, Chris.” She continues to dig through the contents of the box. “So, the less opposition she has, the happier she is.”
Mr. Blessed looks expectantly at Lettice, waiting for her to go on, however she doesn’t until she finds what she is looking for. She pulls out two photos in round gilded frames, one of a bookish looking bespectacled gentleman and one of a matronly woman in an Edwardian pre-war picture hat. She hands them to him. He takes them and looks quizzically at them.
“Those are Miss Chambers’ parents, Chris.” Lettice explains. “They died out in India when Miss Chambers was young, and that is how Miss Chambers came to be Lady Gladys’ ward.”
“And they are important, why, Miss?”
“Because Chris, I had a feeling that Lady Gladys felt threatened by them, or not so much by them, but rather by the spectre of them. I think that as she had no children of her own, and married Sir John later in life to give him any, that perhaps she felt deficient in some way. After being Miss Chamber’s guardian for so long, perhaps she feels it is her right to whitewash away their existence.”
“She’s no right to do that, Miss!” Mr. Blessed says indignantly.
“I know, Chris. I shared my thoughts with my aunt, who knows Lady Gladys quite well, but she told me that I was being foolish. However, the further along we’ve come on the journey of redecorating this flat, the more I’ve regretted what I’ve done. I feel as though I’ve painted over the memory of those two poor people.” She indicates with a nod of her head to the portraits in Mr. Blessed’s hands. “Goodness knows what Miss Chambers will think, really.”
“Will she tell you, Miss, truthfully I mean?”
Lettice sighs and shakes her head. “I doubt it, Chris.”
“Well, you can ask me what I think, if you want.” a light female voice sighs from behind Lettice.
Both Lettice and Mr. Blessed gasp. Lettice spins on her heel in shock and her male companion looks up from the photographs in his hands to the door leading from the hallway to the drawing room. There, lolling against the freshly painted white doorframe is Pheobe, dressed in a white linen frock embroidered with pale blue birds, making her skin look even paler and more ethereal than it already is. Her corona of wispy blonde curls are held back by an aquamarine scarf tied loosely around her forehead.
“Pheobe!” Lettice gasps.
“You can ask me, if you want, or not if you don’t.” Pheobe repeats in a deflated tone. “My opinion doesn’t really matter.”
“What are you doing here, Pheobe? I thought you were staying at your Aunt Gladys and Uncle John’s at Eaton Square*****.”
“I am, but I realised I had forgotten some books I need for my horticulture classes at the Academy.” Phebe replies. “So I’d just come to collect them.” She points to the boxes behind the shame faced looking Lettice. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Lettice asks, raising her hand to her throat where she can feel the heat from a flush of embarrassment as it creeps up her neck to her face.
“Long enough.” she responds matter-of-factly with a sigh. “Not that it matters.”
“I… I think, I’ll just see what the lads are up to.” Mr. Blessed says tactfully, discreetly placing the two photograph portraits atop the box of books before passing awkwardly between the two young women and retreating out of sight down the hall.
“I’m… I’m so sorry. I was… was, speaking out of turn.” Lettice manages to stammer awkwardly. “I ought not to have said what I just did about Gladys.”
“Oh but it’s true, Miss Chetwynd. Gladys is used to getting her own way, and if she doesn’t get it to begin with, she will eventually find a way to make sure that she does. She has Uncle John wrapped around her little finger, as well as all those toadying sycophants she surrounds herself with. That’s why she loves them all so much and cultivates friendships with them.”
Lettice’s mouth falls open slightly. She has never heard Phoebe string so many sentences together in one sitting before, nor has she heard her speak so frankly, and then she realises that it is because every other time she has seen Phoebe, it has been in Lady Gladys’ presence.
“It must be hard to live in the shadow of such a strong personality.” Lettice says at length.
“How can a flower live without sunshine?” Phoebe replies sadly.
“Is it really that bloody***** for you, Phoebe?”
“When I was accepted into the Royal Academy’s garden design course, I was thrilled - positively thrilled, Miss Chetwynd! However,” Phoebe pauses for a moment and casts Lettice a guilty glance. “And please don’t be shocked by this, but what thrilled me more was that finally I would be able to escape Gladys’ cloying clutches. Being of age, and studying, I would finally be able to live independently from her, here.” She looks around her. “But then she sinks her claws into here, the one piece of my life that really is my own and hasn’t been influenced… tainted by her presence.” She sighs deeply. “And the things I most want, she has stolen out from underneath me.”
Lettice’s mind is cast back to the day she first saw Phoebe’s pied-à-terre after she attended Lady Gladys’ reading of an excerpt of her latest romance novel, Miranda, at Selfridges. It was that day that Lady Gladys had revealed her true colours. There had been a beautiful Georgian bureau desk in the corner of the drawing room which had belonged to Phoebe’s father, Lady Gladys’ brother. Lady Gladys said that whilst he had left the flat and all its contents to Phoebe as his only child, he had really intended for her to have the bureau. And that settled the matter, and she took it, in spite of Phoebe’s obvious distress at losing a precious piece of her father. “I’m so sorry, Phoebe. What can I do to make amends?”
Pheobe doesn’t answer at first, but looks around the room with a desultory gaze, her eyes fliting from items to item with no real purpose. “It’s all rather a messy business, isn’t it.”
“What is, Pheobe?”
“This redecorating lark of yours?”
Lettice is taken aback a little by Pheobe calling her work ‘a lark’, but considering what she had been saying about Lady Gladys just a moment before, she decides not to correct the girl and with as much composure as she can muster, she replies with false joviality that presents more like flippantness, “Oh, only at this stage. Things will improve after this.”
“Hhhmmm.” Pheobe replies noncommittally as she continues to glance around the room, her pale blue eyes glistening.
The pair fall into silence again. Lettice feels her heart racing as she watches Pheobe, who timidly moves across the room towards her, and then past her to the boxes of books, photographs and other personal effects Pheobe had packed away for the duration of the redecoration.
“Do you like it, Pheobe?” Lettice asks gingerly.
“Hhhmmm?” Pheobe murmurs distractedly.
“The redecoration? Do you like it? Can you bear it? I chose green, just like you’d requested.”
“I requested?” Pheobe asks. “Oh, I never actually requested it, that first time I met you Miss Chetwynd.” she corrects Lettice.
Lettice feels a curdling in her stomach, and she thinks back to the dinner at Gossington, the Scottish Baronial style English Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland belonging to Sir John and Lady Gladys. It was true that Phoebe had uttered the word ‘green’, but now as she reconsiders the moment in hindsight, it was really Lady Gladys who had suggested painting the pied-à-terre green. Phoebe had simply parroted the word, and neither agreed nor disagreed. “It was Lady Gladys.”
“Yes.” Phoebe sighs. “Just like everything else, including the eau-de-nil sofas.” She runs a hand lightly along the upholstered arm of a sofa. “It’s all her, just as she likes it. I’m never to forget how my whole life, I owe to her.”
“I’m so sorry Pheobe.” Lettice says again. “I should never have accepted Glady’s commission. If I’d known then what I know now, I…”
“Oh it doesn’t matter, Miss Chetwynd.” Pheobe interrupts Lettice. “Truly it doesn’t. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. At least you tried to ask me what I’d like. I doubt some of Gladys’ other interior designer friends, ones who are perhaps a little less in vogue as you are currently, wouldn’t have even bothered to ask me. They would have gone directly to the source and asked her. Why ask me? What possible contribution could I have to make in the redecoration of my own flat?”
“You would have preferred it have been left as it was,” Lettice admits. “I can see that now.”
“What I want, or wanted, is of no consequence,” Pheobe retorts with a derisive snort. “Although I don’t actually mind the colour you’ve chosen, Miss Chetwynd. For what it’s worth, my aunt was probably right about this place needing a freshen up.”
“But you would have preferred it to have been left at that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
The pain in Pheobe’s voice as she utters that one word pierces Lettice’s heart.
“Your astute observation of Gladys is correct to a degree.” Phoebe suddenly says. She picks up the two portraits deposited on top of the boxes as Lettice deflatedly sinks down onto the upholstered seat of the sofa next to her, allowing her legs to drape over the rolled up carpet at her feet. “She never hid the fact that she felt my father married the wrong woman. She always told me that my father married below his station, and that my mother stunted his ambitions.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say to a child about their mother, Pheobe.”
“Horrible or not, she said it nonetheless, and Gladys meant it.” Pheobe runs a hand lovingly over the two-dimensional image of her mother’s serious face in sepia film beneath the glass of the frame. “But I don’t agree with your conclusion about Gladys being afraid of the memory of my parents.” She looks over at Lettice. “You see, when they died, for Gladys they just ceased being.”
“What do you mean, Pheobe?”
“As you have correctly realised, there is only one thing Gladys really cares about, and that’s herself. She wasn’t scared of my parents’ memory: when they died, their memory simply became irrelevant.”
“But what about their memory for you?”
“Irrelevant to me too, Miss Chetwynd!” Pheobe spits. “You should know that! Gladys became my surrogate mother, and whether she was good or bad as a parent, as far as Gladys is concerned, I’m the only parent that she needed, until she married John, whom she graciously permitted to be my surrogate father in the wishy-washy way anyone around Gladys is allowed to be. My parents’ memory wasn’t a point to consider, because for Gladys, their memory evaporated.”
“I feel terrible, Pheobe. Truly I do.”
“Like I said, if it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else doing this. At least you have a modicum of concern.”
“More than a modicum, Phoebe, I assure you.” Lettice mumbles.
The pair fall into silence again, with only the sound of the workmen in the hallway outside, the birds in the trees and the distant rumble of London traffic punctuating the quiet.
“So, what would you like, Pheobe, really?” Lettice asks at length.
“What do you mean, Miss Chetwynd.”
“If Gladys wasn’t here to make the decision for you, to cast your own wants and desires into her dark shadow, how would you like your home decorated? Do you want it back to the way it was before?”
“Well,” Phoebe looks around the room again. “As I remarked, I must confess the colour does lift the room somewhat, but, well you saw how it was. I want my books and my photographs, and that bookish, scholarly, ramshackle mess. Most of all, I want that essence of my parents: my mother’s china,” She takes a deep breath as tears well in her eyes.
“Your father’s desk.”
“Yes. They are the only things I really have of them, and they mean more to me than these photographs. These are just faces, but the chips in my mother’s plates and teacups and the grooves and ink stains in my father’s bureau resonate so much with me. I feel my parents’ presence through those chips, knocks and stains. Don’t ask me why, but I do.”
“I think I understand why, Phoebe.”
Pheobe doesn’t say anything else, but seems transfixed momentarily by the view of the façade of brick flats with terracotta detailing, around the same age as her own block of flats, and the green trees across the road. “It’s funny how much more light windows let in when there aren’t any curtains.” she observes.
“Against my better judgement, I had ordered some pale green floral curtains as a tribute to your interest in garden design.” Lettice sighs.
“That sounds quite tasteful.” Pheobe remarks, turning and facing Lettice as she does.
“I can’t stand chintz.” Lettice admits.
Pheobe bursts out laughing: a joyous and loud sound that quite startles Lettice, firstly because it seems so oddly large and vibrant coming from such a fey, lithe girl like Pheobe, and secondly because she realises for the first time that she has never heard Pheobe laugh before. Lettice begins to laugh herself and the awkwardness she felt is broken.
“Is everything alright in here, ladies?” Mr. Blessed asks, poking his head through the doorway after hearing the girls’ laughter from his perch on an upturned tea chest in the hallway outside where he sat, smoking a Woodbine******.
Lettice turns around in her seat and looks over her shoulder. She can see the questioning look in her workman’s eyes. “Yes, thank you Chris. However, there has been a change of plans.” She glances momentarily at Phoebe before returning her gaze to Mr. Blessed. “I’m dispensing of the services of you and your men for the day. There will be no redecorating today.”
“Miss?” Mr. Blessed queries.
“I’ll pay you and your men your wage for a day’s work, but I have no further need of any of you today. Go home to Croydon and spend the afternoon with your pretty wife, Chris.” Lettice smiles. “I’ll telephone you once I’ve decided what happens from here.”
“As you wish, Miss.” Mr. Blessed acquiesces as he retreats.
"That settles it then!” Lettice claps her hands three times.
“Settles what, Miss Chetwynd?”
“This!” Lettice gesticulates around her. “We’ll leave Mr. Clarke’s men to finish painting, but before I redecorate, we’re going to repossess what’s rightfully yours. Is your aunt still in London?”
“Yes.” Phoebe replies tentatively. “She’s at Eaton Square now. I think she is due to read an excerpt of her new romance novel down in Charing Cross******* this afternoon.”
“Excellent! I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to settle up the men for today and then I’m going to talk to Gladys! I’m going to insist that she give back the things she’s forcibly confiscated from you, and once I have them back, I’ll redecorate with a bit of the old and a bit of new.”
“She won’t listen to you, Miss Chetwynd.” Phoebe shakes her head. “You know what she’s like.”
“Well, she’ll have to.” Lettice says resolutely, picking herself up out of the sofa’s soft upholstery. “Your aunt isn’t the only one determined to get her own way. I am the daughter of a viscount after all, and therefore, I outrank her.”
*A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.
**The expression “shipshape and Bristol fashion”, meaning in good and seamanlike order with reference to the condition of a ship, had its origin when Bristol was the major west coast port of Britain at a time when all its shipping was maintained in good order.
***Before, and even after the Second World War, a great deal could be attained about a person’s social origins by what language and terminology they used in class-conscious Britain by the use of ‘”U and non-U English” as popularised by upper class English author, Nancy Mitford when she published a glossary of terms in an article “The English Aristocracy” published by Stephen Spender in his magazine “encounter” in 1954. There are many examples in her glossary, amongst which are the word “sofa” which is a U (upper class) word, versus “settee” or “couch” which are a non-U (aspiring middle-class) words. Whilst quite outdated today, it gives an insight into how easily someone could betray their humbler origins by something as simple as a single word.
****Eaton Square is a rectangular residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is the largest square in London. It is one of the three squares built by the landowning Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the Nineteenth Century that are named after places in Cheshire — in this case Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house. It is larger but less grand than the central feature of the district, Belgrave Square, and both larger and grander than Chester Square. The first block was laid out by Thomas Cubitt from 1827. In 2016 it was named as the "Most Expensive Place to Buy Property in Britain", with a full terraced house costing on average seventeen million pounds — many of such town houses have been converted, within the same, protected structures, into upmarket apartments.
*****The old fashioned British term “bloody” rather than a swear word, was a way of indicating how dour or serious a situation was.
******Woodbine is a British brand of cigarettes which, as of 2019, is owned and manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. Woodbine cigarettes are named after the woodbine flowers, native to Eurasia. Woodbine was launched in 1888 by W.D. & H.O. Wills. Noted for its strong unfiltered cigarettes, the brand was cheap and popular in the early 20th century with the working-class, as well as with army men during the First and Second World War.
*******Charing Cross is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. It was also famous in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries as being the centre for bookselling in London.
This slightly chaotic redecoration in progress is different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The photos of Phoebe’s parents in the gilded round frames come from Melody Jane’s Doll’s House Suppliers in the United Kingdom. The French dome clock bookended by Ken Blythe volumes on top of the bureau is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England. Phoebe’s photos of her student friends on the mantlepiece are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
Phoebe’s collection of books are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make each book a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The wooden boxes with their Edwardian advertising labels have been purposely aged and came from The Dolls’ House Supplier in the United Kingdom.
The eau-de-nil suite consisting of armchairs, sofa and pouffe are all made of excellent quality fabric, and are very well made, as is the coffee table with its small drawer beneath the tabletop. All these pieces were made as a set by high-end miniatures manufacturer Jiayi Miniatures.
The rolled up geometrically patterned Art Deco carpet comes from a miniatures specialist store on E-Bay.
The ladder in the background comes from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.
