Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat. Instead, we have followed Lettice south-east, past the Royal Academy, across Picadilly, through the neighbouring borough of St James’ with its private clubs and gentlemen’s tailors, over St James’ Park and Birdcage Walk where once the Royal Menagerie and aviaries of King James I and King Charles II had stood, to Queen Anne’s Gate* in Westminster, lined with fine early Eighteenth Century townhouses. Walking beneath a cloudy spring sky with teasing peeks of blue between the rolling white and grey clouds, Lettice strides up the street with unhurried footsteps, cutting a fine figure in her three-quarter length fox fur coat with a wide brimmed red felt hat positioned at a jaunty angle on her head. The heels of her red pumps click along the footpath as she looks up pleasurably and admires the simple, elegant façades of the red and rich brown brick buildings around her, all set with rigid rows of twelve, nine and six pane Georgian windows. She pauses to make a closer inspection of one of the ornately carved canopies** over the main door of a residence. Painted in white to match the window frames of the house, the wood of the canopy is finely carved with a mixture of flowers, draped festoons, oak leaves and acorns. In the centre, the face of a woman, possibly Queen Anne herself, peers out surrounded by the curls of her hair and lace of her collar. It is then that she realises as she notices the shiny brass numbers nailed to the black painted door, that she has reached her destination. “Very nice.” she murmurs in a mixture of approval and admiration. She can hear the muffled sound of distant hammering but cannot tell whether it emanates from the house she stands before, or another in the row. Looking behind her she notices several tradesmen’s vehicles parked amidst the smarter Austins and Worsleys along the street. Walking up the two Portland stone steps to the front door she notices a bell pull sticking out of the red brick to the left of the door. She pulls it. From within the house the sound of a loud bell echoes hollowly, implying that the interior is devoid of furnishings. She waits, but when no-one comes to open the door, she exercises the bellpull for longer. Once again, the bell echoes mournfully from deep within the house behind the closed door. Finally, a pair of shuffling footsteps can be heard along with indecipherable muttering and then a vaguely familiar fruity cough as the latch to the door turns.
“Mrs. Boothby!” Lettice exclaims, coming face-to-face with the wrinkled face of her charwoman*** as the old Cockney woman opens the door to the townhouse.
“Well, as I live an’ breave!” she exclaims in return with a broad and toothy smile before coughing loudly again, making Lettice wince. “If it ain’t Miss Lettice! G’mornin’ mum!” Dressed in a bright floral cotton pinny over her dress and with an equally bright and cheerfully patterned scarf tied around her head, she bobs a curtsey respectfully. “You must be ‘ere to see Mrs. ‘Atchett! C’mon in wiv ya!”
Lettice walks through the door held open by Mrs. Boothby and steps into a well proportioned vestibule devoid of furnishings, but with traces of where furniture and paintings once were by way of tell-tale shadows and outlines on the floor and walls. Now that she has stepped into the townhouse, she can hear the hammering and sawing of tradesmen more clearly, confirming that the work she heard from outside is happening in this building. Ahead of her a carved dividing screen of two burnished mahogany columns with a delicate glass lunette**** of seven panes of clear glass splaying out from a central semi-circle above, frames an equally empty hallway at the end of which she can see the sweeping curl of a bannistered Georgian staircase with dainty spindles along it. Only a non-working clock with a brass frame showing the wrong time graces the walls of the hallway, imbedded into a space above a closed doorway that may possibly lead downstairs the servants’ quarters in the basement.
“Come this way, mum. Mrs. ‘Atchett’s frough ‘ere, just up the stairs, in the drawin’ room on the first floor.” Mrs. Boothby says. “If you can call it that right now.” The old woman leads the way, her low heeled shoes slapping across the dusty, stained and badly damaged parquetry floor, pieces of which are missing or sticking up, splintered. Noticing Lettice’s concerned look, the Mrs. Boothby goes on, “You mustn’t mind the mess, mum. It’s all sixes ‘n’ sevens ‘round ‘ere, what wiv tradesmen thumpin’ in and out in their ‘obnail boots*****. C’mon up.”
“How is it that you are here, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks in bewilderment as she follows the older woman down the hallway and up the staircase, which she finds is carpeted in a tatty, filthy and moth eaten Victorian stair runner.
“Well, you know ‘ow it is, mum. Word gets ‘round.” Mrs. Boothby replies with air of mystery.
“Does it, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice queries, eyeing the back of her charwoman sceptically as they ascend the stairs with Mrs. Boothby in the lead.
“Indeed it does, mum!” Mrs. Boothby replies cheerfully, releasing another of her fruity coughs as she does.
“This is quite a coincidence.” Lettice adds, remembering when she first visited the Pimlico flat of one of her former clients, the American film actress Wanetta Ward, and found Mrs. Boothby answering the door. “This wouldn’t happen to be because you heard from Edith that I was potentially going to do some redecoration for Mrs. Hatchett, would it Mrs. Boothby?”
Mrs. Boothby stops on the first floor landing. Turning back to face Lettice she allows her hand to rest upon the curving mahogany bannister. “’Eavens no, mum! Our Edith is the soul of discretion! She’d never gossip ‘bout you or ‘ooever you’re decoratin’ for!” she purposefully lies with an air of conviction in her voice, determined not to let Edith, Lettice’s maid, suffer any consequences because Mrs. Boothby easily wheedled out of her the fact that Mrs. Hatchett was setting up a house in Queen Anne’s Gate with her Member of Parliament husband. “’Er mum brung ‘er up proppa, just like mine did me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Boothby!” Lettice finds herself apologising. “So, how did you find this position, working for Mrs. Hatchett, then, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Well I cleaned for Lady Pembroke-Duttson, just ‘round the corner from ‘ere ‘till ‘er ‘ouse burnt dahwn in November that is. I was doin’ for ‘er in ‘er new ‘ouse in them fancy Artillery Mansions******, and she mentioned that Mrs. ‘Atchett was movin’ into the neighbour’ood, so I made some enquiries. So, ‘ere I is.” She spreads her careworn hands expansively. “Lady Pembroke-Duttson left a big gap in me schedule, so I’m ‘opin’ this’ll be permanent like soon.”
“But I thought you just said you were still cleaning for Lady Pembroke-Duttson, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice says with a sceptical squint.
“Ay?” the old woman asks.
“You just said that you were cleaning for Lady Pembroke-Duttson.” Lettice elucidates. “How can she leave a gap in your schedule of jobs if you’re still cleaning for her.”
Thinking quickly on her feet, Mrs. Boothby releases a throaty chuckle, blushing as she does. “Lawd luv you, mum! Cleanin’ a flat in Artillery Mansions ain’t like cleanin’ ‘er old ‘ouse what burnt dahwn. ‘Er old ‘ouse ‘ad ever so many rooms, whereas now she’s got rooms ‘bout the size of yours, mum. That leaves a big gap, mum.”
Lettice silently wonders whether the old charwoman’s story holds any truth, however she has no proof that it doesn’t, so she just smiles benignly and nods. Whether Mrs. Boothby squeezes titbits of gossip from Edith or not, the pair of domestics keep Lettice’s Cavendish Mews flat spick and span, and with such difficulty finding decent staff in the aftermath of the war, Lettice decides that she best say nothing about her suspicions to Edith.
“Anyway,” Mrs. Boothby adds. “It’s only right, ain’t it?”
“What is, Mrs. Boothby?”
“Me cleanin’ for Mr. and Mrs. “Atchett, mum.”
“How so, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice queries.
“Well, Charlie ‘Atchett’s the MP for Tower ‘Amlets*******, and that includes me, what wiv me own ‘ouse bein’ in Poplar! It’s only right!”
“Does Mrs. Hatchett know that you clean for me, Mrs. Boothby?” Lettice asks warily, holding her breath as she speaks.
“Lawn no, mum.” Mrs. Boothby cackles.
“Well, just see that she doesn’t, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice snaps, irritated by the cockney woman’s gib attitude to the situation. “I can’t have a whiff of any perceived potential gossip from me with Mrs. Hatchett. I won’t have any such thing jeopardise this commission.”
“As if I would.” Mrs. Boothby replies with a lofty air. “Come along now. She’s just in ‘ere.”
The pair walk down a dingy oak panelled corridor lined with open doors through which Lettice can see a series of rooms in different states of decay and repair, all empty except for one where a group of workmen on scaffolds strip paper off a wall and patch the brickwork behind it, and a second where men are laying a new floor, which is where all the hammering is emanating from. The old Cockney woman leads Lettice past a fine mahogany door that has been removed from its hinges and into a gloomy room devoid of furniture except for a pair of old, mouldering brown leather wingback******** armchairs, a neat pedestal table and a portrait sitting on an easel. A large white marble fireplace is being scrubbed with a wiry brush by another charwoman, far younger than Mrs. Boothby, overweight and with a mass of black curls tied back off her face by a rag bandeau********* on her hands and knees in front of the grate, grunting noisily with her laboured movements, her efforts revealing beautiful white details from beneath many years of brown grime.
“Well, she was ‘ere, mum.” Mrs. Boothby apologises in surprise. “I dunno know where she’s gawn now.” She looks at the other charwoman cleaning the fireplace. “’Ere, Elsie! You know where Mrs. ‘Atchett’s gawn?”
“Nah!” the charwoman grunts back monosyllabically before pausing in her labours and leaning back on her haunches and looks up at Mrs. Boothby, ignoring Lettice’s presence entirely. “Gawn to the lav most likely. I think I need it too. Cleanin’ this fireplace gives me the shits**********!”
Lettice sucks in a gulp of air in shock at the other woman’s vulgarity.
“Elsie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims aghast. “Whachoo fink you’re doin’, sayin’ words like that in front of a laydee! This ‘ere is the Honourable Miss Lettice Chetwynd, what’s a friend of Mrs. ‘Atchett’s.” She gesticulates with sweeping gestures around Lettice like a vendeuse*********** showing off a model in the latest fashion.
“So?” Elise replies, yawning loudly, giving Lettice ample view of her grey, rotting teeth. “’S not my concern!” Scrabbling off her knees with another exhausted groan, she wanders off lazily, her down-at-heel slippers slapping loudly across the floor as she exits the room through another door, muttering to herself as she does.
“I do beg your pardon, mum.” Mrs. Boothby apologises profusely.
“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Boothby.” Lettice replies, gracefully attempting to smooth over the nasty gaff from the other woman.
“No it ain’t! Elsie’s got no right to talk to you like that! Elsie was ‘ere when I arrived. I dunno, ‘cos I don’t talk to ‘er much, but I fink she’s the daughter of one of the carp’nters,” She indicates behind her with her right thumb. “And the wife of annuva. She’s very rude, lazy, and got no respect for no-one.” Her old face crumples in distaste. “She certainly ain’t no friend of mine, and that’s a fact!”
“Really, it’s quite fine.” Lettice assures Mrs. Boothby.
“I’ll go see if I can find Mrs. ‘Atchett for you, mum.” Mrs. Boothby says soothingly, bustling from the room through the same open door Elsie had exited through.
Left alone, Lettice is better able to explore and take in her gloomy surroundings. The walls are papered in old fashioned Victorian flocked wallpaper which must once have been a beautiful gold, but is now dreary, faded and tattered. Large floor to ceiling bookshelves made of dark mahogany run along the walls to either side of the fireplace, adding to the overall cheerlessness of the room. Dirty and torn scrim hangs at the window, obscuring the view and the much needed daylight. There is a pervading smell of damp which is only offset by the scent of freshly cut timber coming from the carpenters laying the floor down the hallway. Lettice notices a single ornate pedestal appearing out of the gloom in the space to the right of the fireplace. Various cleaning agents have been left around the room: some Vim*********** on an empty bookshelf beneath a bright yellow cleaning cloth, probably deposited there by Mrs. Boothby, and some Zebo Grate Polish************* on the mantle along with a feather duster. The blue, red and yellow Victorian carpet beneath her feet must once have been very fine, but now, like the stair runner is faded, worn and dirty. In fact, aside from the portrait on the easel, there is a thick film of filth on almost every surface, as though it has been decades since the room was property cleaned. The portrait however, is dazzling by comparison to its surroundings. Set in a simple gold frame, the oil on canvas depicts Mrs. Hatchett with her modishly styled blonde hair and pale peaches and cream complexion in a pale blue gown against a neutral coloured background. Mrs. Hatchett’s eyes glitter and sparkle whilst a gentle smile teases the edges of her reddened lips. The strokes are bold and the image has a sense of energy and about it.
“Do you like it, Miss Chetwynd?” comes a familiar voice.
Lettice turns and sees Dolly Hatchett standing in the doorway Mrs. Boothby and Elsie had disappeared through. Like her portrait, Mrs. Hatchett’s pale blue eyes twinkle and sparkle with life, and her soft skin has a gentle glow to it as she smiles at Lettice, her simple gesture adding warmth and joy to the cheerless room. No wonder Captain Charles Hatchett, home on leave during the Great War, had fallen in love with the chorus girl from ‘Chu Chin Chow’************** as he watched her in the darkened auditorium of His Majesty’s Theatre. Wrapped in a sleek full length mink coat with a string of pearls at her throat and a fashionable black felt cloche from under which her blonde waves poke, the slightly awkward and gauche wife of the once banker, now Member of Parliament, that Lettice met for the first time at her Sussex home in 1921 is gone. In her place stands an elegant and confident woman whose experience, social advancement and successes since that time have given her a presence which Lettice cannot help but admire.
“Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice exclaims. “You look wonderful!”
Mrs. Hatchett laughs, her peal beautiful and carefree, as she steps into the room, walking with poise across the carpet to Lettice’s side. “No, not me, Miss Chetwynd, the portrait!”
“Oh!” Lettice turns and glances back at the painting before returning her attention to Mrs. Hatchett. “Oh it’s marvellous too, but not nearly so much as you, Mrs. Hatchett.” she enthuses.
“You always were so kind to me, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett says with a dismissive sweep of her hand. “Thank you.” She blushes.
“You’ve changed so much, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice remarks with a smile. “You are nothing like the, dare I say it, mousey, young woman I met in 1921! You’re so, so assured, self-possessed!”
Mrs. Hatchett laughs again. “I’m still little Dolly Hatchett the chorus girl under my warpaint.” She cocks an expertly plucked and shaped eyebrow, also newly acquired since Lettice last met her, over her eye. “I’m just better at disguising her now, so I can be the suitable wife successful MP for Towers Hamlets, Charles Hatchett, needs.”
“I’m sure it’s more than that, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice counters.
“Maybe,” Mrs. Hatchett admits quietly. “But if it is, I have you and dear Mr. Bruton to thank for it. You helped me to understand that I deserved more respect than that which I received from my mother-in-law, and Mr. Bruton taught me the power of clothes when it comes to presenting a confident appearance.”
“Indeed he has!” Lettice sighs. “You look ever so smart and select, Mrs. Hatchett.”
“Thank you, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett purrs. “Goodness, it does seem an age since that wonderful weekend at ‘The Gables’.”
“Yes, we were celebrating the completion of my interior decoration for you.”
“And you encouraged me to let myself be dressed by Mr. Bruton that first evening. Now everyone in Rotherfield and Mark Cross, and a good many more beyond it, follows what I wear with interest and try to mimic it.”
“Well, I’m happy for you, Mrs. Hatchett.”
A gust of wind blows outside, causing the windows to rattle in their casings and the scrim to quiver. The rasp of leaves echoes from the fireplace and some dust and soot falls from the chimney and into the empty blacklead grate.
Lettice shivers. “I’m glad you warned me to wear a fur coat here, Mrs. Hatchett. It’s rather chilly.”
“I’d have had a fire laid, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett apologises. “But I’m a bit apprehensive that the whole place doesn’t ignite before I get chimney sweeps in to check and clean the flues. One of the daily women I’ve hired told me of a woman who lived not far from here that she cleaned for, whose house went up in flames dramatically in November.”
“Did she?” Lettice tries to muffle a gentle smile with her hand.
“She did! She said she was lucky to get away with her life!”
Lettice’s smile broadens as she recognises the more innocent, less worldly, but more endearing Dolly Hatchett carefully obscured beneath the layers of Gerald’s couture, just as Mrs. Hatchett assured her she was.
“Anyway,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “What do you think of the House of Usher?”
“You don’t like it, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice queries, surprised considering how enthused Mrs. Hatchett had sounded over the telephone about she and her husband’s new London home, intended to replace the pied-à-terre*************** in Kensington that Charles and she are currently using as their London base.
“Oh I do from the outside,” Mrs. Hatchett quickly explains. “But this…” Her voice trails off as she waves her hand around the room.
“Yes,” Lettice sighs. “This.”
As if the house knows that it is being spoken of disparagingly, some more soot falls from somewhere high above, crashing and crumbling into the grate in a disgruntled fashion.
“Charlie tells me that her bones are good,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “But looking about these rooms all I see is decay.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice blusters. “It seems to me that you’ve already begun the house’s rebirth and renewal. The rooms are well proportioned, being early Eighteenth Century.”
“Aaahh…” Mrs. Hatchett sighs contentedly. “And that’s why I need your eye of possibility again, Miss Chetwynd. You saw through all my mother-in-law’s drab Victorian décor at ‘The Gables’ and envisioned how beautiful and light it could be, and you brought that vision to fruition. Now you can see it here, or at least I hope you can, somewhere under the layers and layers of filth and decomposition.”
“I think I can.” Lettice admits, looking around the room again.
She goes to sit in the larger of the old wingback brown leather chairs.
“Oh, I shouldn’t do that if I were you, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hatchett exclaims, putting out her hands to stop Lettice from sitting.
“Why ever not, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks in surprise.
“Well, for a start, in case you hadn’t noticed, we do have a bit of damp problem. There’s nothing to say it hasn’t gotten into the furniture left by the auctioneers when they cleaned the house out.”
“Yes,” Lettice sniffs and screws up her nose a little. “There is a definite sense of dampness in the air.”
“Oh, and behind these worn old papers,” She gesticulates around the room again. “And in the plaster ceilings, under the wainscots, and,” She moves the toe of her black leather pump back and forth on the carpet, making the parquet flooring beneath groan. “And the floorboards.”
“Oh don’t, Mrs. Hatchett!” Lettice pleads her hostess, who smiles cheekily when she sees Lettice shiver.
Stopping her torment of the floor, Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “Secondly, I believe he died there.”
“Who?” Lettice’s eyes grow wide as she stares at the worn seat of the chair.
“The Admiral.” Mrs. Hatchett replies, pointing to the single painting hanging on the wall in the room, hanging above the fireplace.
Lettice looks up at the portrait, which like most everything else in the room is dark and covered in a film of dirt. Through the filth, beneath the cracking golden yellow layers of varnish, Lettice can see a rather handsome looking gentleman in a dark frock coat and orange breeches leaning against a wall, gazing out of the frame into the distance.
“Or so I have on good authority.” Mrs. Hatchett adds.
“From whom?” Lettice asks in alarm.
“From his old housekeeper.” Mrs. Hatchett replies. “She came with the house, staying on after the Admiral died to show us, as the new owners, the quirks of the house.”
“That’s quite a quirk!” Lettice looks askance at the chair.
“Apparently, he was one hundred and twelve when he died. He was bed, ahem…” Mrs. Hatchett clears her throat awkwardly. “Chair ridden and he only lived in this room and a few others since 1910. You wait until I show you some of the downstairs rooms towards Birdcage Walk where the garden has unceremoniously entered the house.”
“Well, I shall lo…” Lettice begins when a sudden rattling over crockery interrupts her words.
“’Ere we are mum… err… Miss… Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Boothby stutters as she quickly remembers that she is supposed to pretend that she doesn’t know Lettice. “And Mrs. ‘Atchett.” The old woman walks into the room carrying a wooden tray on which sit two plain white teacups and saucers, a matching milk jug, sugar bowl, a non-matching but pretty floral teapot covered in pink roses, and a tin of Huntly and Palmer**************** biscuits.
“Oh splendid timing Mrs. Boothby!” Mrs. Hatchett sighs, clapping her steepled fingers in delight.
With a groan, Mrs. Boothby lowers it onto the pedestal table. “Take a seat, mu… Miss Chetwynd and Mrs. ‘Atchett!”
“I think I’d prefer to stand.” Lettice remarks, looks askance at the chair.
“Suit yourself.” Mrs. Boothby remarks, looking oddly first at Lettice and then at the chair, screwing up her nose as she considers the chair may be a little grubby, but not beyond her mistress sitting in. “Do you want me to keep cleanin’ in ‘ere, mum?” she addresses Mrs. Hatchett.
Lettice almost replies automatically, but luckily her utterance is cut off by Mrs. Hatchett.
“If you’d just focus on the dining room for now, thank you Mrs. Boothby. You may return here after Miss Chetwynd and I have finished our business.”
“Very good, mum.” Mrs. Boothby answers, dropping a quick bob curtsey. She turns and goes to walk away. Then she turns back to Mrs. Hatchett. “Oh, and mum?”
“Yes Mrs. Boothby?” Mrs. Hatchett asks.
“You’re still alright wiv me ‘avin that old teapot I found,” She nods towards the floral teapot on the tray.
“Oh yes, Mrs. Boothby. Of course! Of course!” Mrs. Hatchett replies.
She giggles once the old Cockney woman has left the room. “I do believe she is a bit of a collector.” She smiles indulgently at Lettice. “But I rather like her, so I can’t help but indulge her.”
“She is certainly nicer than the other daily woman I met.” Lettice adds seriously.
“Oh, the other one came with them.” Mrs. Hatchett indicates through the door off its hinges into the hallway where the banging of nails being hammered into wood continue. “She’s rather slovenly, and certainly sullen.”
“You still can’t quite manage the staff, can you, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice chuckles.
Mrs. Hatchett chuckles self consciously in return. “I told you that it’s still little me under this façade that you and Mr. Bruton helped to create.” She muses silently to herself, smiling before continuing, “I think I might employ her as a daily.”
“What?” Lettice ask in surprise. “Who?”
“Mrs. Boothby. The old woman who answered the door to you and brought our tea in. She’s been very reliable and works hard, she knows the area well, has a cheerful disposition, and she seems to have some rather good references.”
Lettice does not reply to Mrs. Hatchett’s remarks about Mrs. Boothby as Mrs. Hatchett sets about pouring tea into the teacups, which Lettice notices are thicker and plainer than what she is used to, and assumes that they must be part of an old servant’s set from below stairs, left when the Admiral’s more finer possessions were cleared out by the auctioneers who sold off his estate. Perhaps the teapot escaped by being hidden in an out of the way corner cupboard, she considers.
“So, Mrs. Hatchett,” Lettice finally says with a sigh, accepting a cup of tea proffered to her by Mrs. Hatchett to which she adds sugar and milk. “You’d like me to decorate this room, a dining room and another reception room?”
“Yes, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett enthuses. “The suite of principal rooms on this floor, which Charlie and I will use as our main entertaining space.”
“I shall have to see the state of the other rooms.” Lettice sips her tea as she stands next to Mrs. Hatchett and looks again around the gloomy interior in the midst of which they stand with a critical eye.
“I shall take you on a tour directly after we’ve had our tea, Miss Chetwynd.” Mrs. Hatchett replies. “And I’ll show you some of the rooms you won’t have to deal with, luckily for you. Biscuit?” She opens the tin of Huntley and Palmer’s Empire Assortment and proffers the selection of biscuits to Lettice.
“I can’t take your commission on straight away.” Lettice tempers her companion’s enthusiasm as she selects a jam fancy from amongst the biscuits on the offing in the tin. “I’ve just accepted a commission from another client who wants some work done on her country house in Essex.”
“Oh, that’s alright!” Mrs. Hatchett replies, selecting a Bourbon biscuit for herself. “This place won’t be shipshape for a good month or two yet: maybe even longer. Work is only really just getting started.” She bites into her biscuit and munches it pleasurably.
“And what do you envisage this time, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks after finishing her own mouthful of biscuit and sip of tea. “Oh, and just to be clear, I won’t settle for chintz of any kind this time.”
“Oh no, my dear Miss Chetwynd! Of course not!” Mrs. Hatchett assures her.
“Well, I know you have a fondness for it, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice eyes Mrs. Hatchett over the white china edge of her cup as she takes another sip of tea.
“I do, Miss Chetwynd. I won’t lie.” Mrs. Hatchett admits guiltily. “But not this time. Not here.”
“Good!” Lettice replies. “Then we are in agreeance.”
“When you came to ‘The Gables’, Miss Chetwynd,” Mrs. Hatchett goes on. “I told you that I didn’t need you to ape the houses of peers with your own taste.”
“Yes, I remember that, Mrs. Hatchett.”
“Well this time, because this is a London house, and a place where Charlie and I plan to entertain other MPs and dignitaries, I need Queen Anne’s Gate to exude stability, knowledge and most of all, sophistication.”
“And what does that look like to you, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks.
“No, what does it look like to you, Miss Chetwynd? You once again have a clean slate to work with.” She looks around her critically. “Or rather it will be when you come back.”
“If I agree.” Lettice counters.
“Can you resist such an offer, Miss Chetwynd? I’m giving you carte blanche to redesign and decorate these rooms.”
“Do you really mean that, Mrs. Hatchett?” Lettice asks. When Mrs. Hatchett nods her confirmation, Lettice goes on, “Well, if I am to be given carte blanche, may I ask, how avant-garde might I be permitted to be with this interior design?”
“As much as you want, Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Hatchett says with a hopeful lilt. “Carte blanche! Neither Charlie nor I know anything about art perse, so we’ll be guided by you. My only request is that I was hoping you could take some of your inspiration from my portrait in your design.” She walks over to her portrait and rubs the edge of the gilded frame affectionately. “You see, I’m really rather proud of it, and I want it to hang above the fireplace in here in place of the Admiral’s portrait.”
“A centrepiece?”
“Yes, that’s right!”
Lettice looks at the portrait again, carefully admiring the vivid brushstrokes of the artist who has so expertly captured Mrs. Hatchett’s spirit. “Very good, Mrs. Hatchett.” she agrees with a smile.
“Oh hoorah!” Mrs. Hatchett deposits her teacup and what is left of her biscuit on the tray and claps her hands in delight. “So, what have you in mind, Miss Chetwynd?”
“There is an exhibition happening in Paris in April. It’s called ‘Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes’*****************. It is highlighting and showcasing the new modern style of architecture and interior design: a style I am an exponent of. I’m planning to go when it opens, Mrs. Hatchett, and I’m hoping to gather new ideas on interior design there and incorporate them into my own. Since the house won’t be finished for a few months, I could use your interior designs to showcase some of my ideas inspired by the exhibition.”
“I say!” Mrs. Hatchett breathes. “How deliciously fashionable! I’d have the most avant-garde house amongst the MPs’ wives! That would be a feather for my cap!”
“Yes, it would, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice purrs. “You’d be the most fashionable, the most up-to-date, the most smart and select.”
“Yes! I agree!” Mrs. Hatchett laughs. “As avant-garde and daring as you like, Miss Chetwynd!”
“Then we’d best finish our tea so you can show me around, Mrs. Hatchett.” Lettice concludes.
*Queen Anne’s Gate is a street in Westminster, London. Many of the buildings are Grade I listed, known for their Queen Anne architecture. Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner described the Gate’s early Eighteenth Century houses as “the best of their kind in London.” The street’s proximity to the Palace of Westminster made it a popular residential area for politicians.
**Originally a street and a square, Queen Anne’s Gate began life as Queen Square and Park Street. The two were separated by a high wall until 1873when the two areas were combined into Queen Anne’s Gate. Queen Square was constructed first, then when Park Street was constructed, residents of Queen Square were so concerned that the road would be used as a cut through for carriages to avoid the traffic of King Street, the Sanctuary and Tothill Street that a subscription was collected for the building of the wall to avoid the residents having the peace of their square disturbed. The architecture of the buildings in the original Queen Square part of Queen Anne’s Gate is superb, and the main doors to the majority of buildings have very elaborate decorated wooden canopies.
***A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
****A lunette is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, usually above a doorway or walkway, variously filled by windows, masonry, a painted mural, or sometimes left void.
*****Hobnailed boots (known in Scotland as “tackety boots”) are boots with hobnails (nails inserted into the soles of the boots), usually installed in a regular pattern, over the sole. They usually have an iron horseshoe-shaped insert, called a heel iron, to strengthen the heel, and an iron toe-piece. They may also have steel toecaps. Often used for mountaineering, the hobnails project below the sole and provide traction on soft or rocky terrain and snow, but they tend to slide on smooth, hard surfaces. They have been used since antiquity for inexpensive durable footwear, and were often by workmen and the military.
******Built in Westminster, quite close to the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament Artillery Mansions was just one of the many fine Victorian mansion blocks to be built in Victoria Street around St James Underground Railway Station in the late 1800s. Constructed around open courtyards which served as carriageways and residential gardens, the mansion blocks were typically built of red brick in the fashionable Queen Anne style. The apartments were designed to appeal to young bachelors or MPs who often had late parliamentary sittings, with many of the apartments not having kitchens, providing instead communal dining areas, rather like a gentleman’s club. Artillery Mansions, like many large mansion blocks employed their own servants to maintain the flats and address the needs of residents. During the Second World War, Artillery Mansions was commandeered by the Secret Intelligence Service as a headquarters. After the war, the building reverted to private residences again, but with so many of its former inhabitants either dead, elderly or in changed circumstances owing to the war, it became a place to house many ex-servicemen. The Army and Navy Company, who ran the Army and Navy Stores just up Victoria Street registered ‘Army and Navy Ltd.’ at Artillery Mansions as a lettings management company. By the 1980s, Artillery Mansions was deserted and in a state of disrepair. It was taken over by a group of ideological squatters who were determined to bring homelessness and housing affordability to the government’s attention, but within ten years, with misaligned ideologies and infighting, the squatters had moved on, and in the 1990s, Artillery Mansions was bought by developers and turned into luxury apartments.
*******The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.
********A wingback chair is a type of chair with a back that curves out to the sides. Wingback chairs are named for the wings, or extensions, of fabric on either side of the seat, typically, but not always, stretching down to the arm rest. The wings can be made of wood or metal, but they're typically padded and upholstered in fabric. The wingback chair was invented in the Sixteenth Century. It was created during a period of fine English furniture design when English furniture makers were creating furniture that has elaborate designs and ornate carvings. The name “wingback chair” is derived from the chair's back wings. The wings were added to provide support for the head and neck of the person sitting in it, as well as affording the sitter with protection from draughts and to trap the heat from a fireplace in the area where the person would be sitting. Hence, in the past, these were often used near a fireplace. They also provided a place for a person to rest their arms, which gave it its distinctive look—a shape similar to that of a bird's wing or butterfly wing.
*********A bandeau is a narrow band worn round the head to hold the hair in position.
**********Believe it or not, but the interjection of “shit” was not uncommon by the 1920s amidst the lower classes. The earliest known use of the interjection shit is in the 1860s. It is also recorded as a noun from the Old English period (pre-1150).
***********Derived from the French, a vendeuse is a saleswoman, usually one in a fashionable dress shop.
************Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.
*************Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper.
************* ‘Chu Chin Chow’ is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was the most popular show in London’s West End during the Great War. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the 3rd of August 1916 and ran for 2,238 performances, a record number that stood for nearly forty years!
**************The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story in the horror/gothic genre by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The story revolves around the narrator visiting his the house of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher: the House of Usher falling slowly but more surely into decrepitude as the story goes on, before finally splitting in two as the narrator flees, and silking into a lake.
***************A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.
****************Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time, morning and afternoon tea and reading time.
*****************The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was a specialized exhibition held in Paris, from April the 29th (the day after it was inaugurated in a private ceremony by the President of France) to October the 25the, 1925. It was designed by the French government to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewelry and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. Many ideas of the international avant-garde in the fields of architecture and applied arts were presented for the first time at the exposition. The event took place between the esplanade of Les Invalides and the entrances of the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and on both banks of the Seine. There were fifteen thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries, and it was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The modern style presented at the exposition later became known as “Art Deco”, after the exposition's name.
Although this may appear to be a real room, this is in fact made up with 1:12 miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The two intentionally worn leather wingback chairs are both 1:12 artisan miniatures which I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. The small pedestal table, the white plaster fireplace, the black painted metal fire basket and fender, black painted fire irons, easel, metal step ladder and pedestal also come from there. The painting on the easel is my own selection of what I thought Mrs. Hatchett might look like, put into a gilded frame that also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop.
The wooden tea tray is a 1;12 artisan miniature piece that I acquired from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. The floral teapot is an artisan piece as well, decorated by the artist Rachel Munday, whose work is highly prized by miniatures collectors. The Huntley and Palmer’s Empire Assorted Biscuit tin containing a replica selection of biscuits is also a 1:12 artisan piece. The plain white teacups, milk jug and sugar bowl are painted metal and come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
The painting hanging above the fireplace came from Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.
On the fireplace stands a bottle of Zebo grate polish and a can of Brasso. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper.
The feather duster on the fireplace mantle I made myself using fledgling feathers (very spring) which I picked up off the lawn one day thinking they would come in handy in my miniatures collection sometime. I bound them with thread to the handle which is made from a fancy ended toothpick!
On s shelf to the right of the photo on top of a yellow cleaning cloth is a can of Vim with stylised Edwardian. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight.
The flocked wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it as wallpaper for my 1:12 miniature tableaux.
The large Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
