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 it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, which is usually a place of calm and organisation. However today, Edith is in a flap, rushing about the room between the stove and the deal kitchen table in the centre of the room, banging copper pots and porcelain serving dishes alike as she starts to serve the day’s luncheon of a roast chicken with boiled vegetables and gravy.
“Goodness dearie! What’s to do?*” Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman** who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs, gasps as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall.
“Oh nothing!” Edith spits anxiously as she slams a heavy bottomed copper saucepan on the table’s surface and starts spooning some boiled vegetables into a pretty blue and white serving dish. “It’s just that Miss Lettice’s father is here.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyebrows arch with curiosity over her sparking eyes. “Is that ooh that pompous old windbag is in the parlour?”
“Ssshhh!” Edith shushes the older Cockney woman. “He’ll hear you!” She indicates with her slotted ladle to the green baize door that leads from the kitchen to the flat’s dining room and the drawing room beyond it.
“I very much doubt that, dearie. “’E seems more than occupied wiv jabberin’ away to Miss Lettice.”
Edith’s face suddenly drains of the high colour her anxiety and the hot kitchen has given it. “He didn’t see you, did he Mrs. Boothby?”
The wiry thin Cockney woman bursts out laughing, which turns into one of her bouts of fruity coughing. “Goodness no, dearie!” she gasps. “I was just finishin’ polishin’ the bedroom floor and I glimpsed ‘im from a distance sittin’ in the parlour as I was comin’ across the entrance hall wiv me bucket.” She drops her aluminium bucket onto the black and white linoleum floor. “Nah! I knows better than ta show my face there when Miss Lettice ‘as guests.”
“Well,“ Edith mutters distractedly as she continues spooning greens from the pot into the tureen. “That’s a relief anyway.”
“Now, what’s all this then?” Mrs. Boothby asks with genuine concern. “It ain’t like you ta be upset by one of Miss Lettice’s visitors, dearie. It’s only ‘er old dad come ta pay a call.”
“Exactly!” Edith says, dropping the ladle back into the pot. She turns around and withdraws a roast chicken from the oven, golden brown and juicy, which she places on the wooden serving tray in the middle of the table. “Miss Lettice came in here at eleven, bold as brass. She knows I don’t like it when she fails to ring the call bell and comes in here.”
“And what did she want?”
“Well, she asked me what was for luncheon. I told her I was going to marinade her a nice bit of chicken with some vegetables. She then asked if it could be extended to a whole chicken with a few extra vegetables, as she had an unexpected visitor dropping in from Wiltshire.”
“Well, that’s where she comes from, so of course ‘er old dad is gonna come from there too.” Mrs. Boothby observes.
“Precisely!” Edith starts mixing some juices from the pan with some gravy salt and some herbs in a smaller copper pot. “When I asked her who was expected, she said breezily as you please, ‘oh just my father’.”
“Well,” Mrs. Boothby says, looking at the chicken on the serving dish, inhaling the wafts of delicious steam coming from it appreciatively. “Looks and smells alright ta me.”
“Alright! Alright!” Edith splutters as she stirs up the gravy. “I’ve never cooked for a viscount before!”
“Ooh’s a viscount?” Mrs. Boothby asks.
“He is!” Edith hisses back. “Miss Lettice’s father! He’s the Sixth Viscount Wrexham.”
“I thought you said your last position was in Pimlico.” Mrs. Boothby says, looking doubtfully at the maid.
“It was, but what has that to do with Lord Chetwynd being a viscount?” Edith pours the rich, thick steaming gravy into a blue and white porcelain gravy boat which matches the tureen and serving dishes.
“Well, they’s plenty of fancy titled folk in Pimlico. Didn’t ya serve some there?”
“I worked for a steel manufacturer and his wife, not a member of the aristocracy, Mrs. Boothby. I served other manufacturers, businessmen and MPs, but not a viscount.”
“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much ‘bout it, dearie. ‘E’ll eat ‘is tea just like manufacturers, businessmen, MPs and everyone else does; wiv ‘is mouth.”
“I’m not so sure about that Mrs. Boothby. He’s already asked Miss Lettice several times where the butler is when he wants a drink or anything else.”
“Nah! ‘E’s just potificatin’, like all them old lawds and laydees do, cos they got their own butlers and maids and what-not in they’s big ‘ouses at ‘ome.” The older woman comes around and wraps her careworn bony fingers around Edith’s shoulders, squeezing them in a comforting fashion. “Yer listen ta me, dearie. Yer cooked a fine tea ‘ere, just as good as any ‘Is Lawdship what would get back in Wiltshire from ‘is ‘oity-toity cook. ‘E should be grateful ta be getting’ such good food ta eat.”
Edith sighs and slumps a little.
“Nah! None of that my girl!” Mrs. Boothby continues, frowning at Edith. “Come on! Shoulders back! Show ‘Is Lawdship that youse as good as any servant. Do Miss Lettice proud. Eh?”
Edith looks up to Mrs. Boothby gratefully. “Thank you, Mrs. Boothby. You’re right.”
“Course I am, dearie. Nah, you go serve and I’ll start the washin’ up. Hhhmm?”
As Edith place the dishes and carving cutlery on her serving tray, ready to take into the dining room, she says, “I wonder why he’s come here for luncheon.”
“Ooh, dearie?”
“The Viscount Wrexham, of course Mrs. Boothby!”
“Oh ‘im. Well, I imagine ‘e’ll get a better meal ‘ere than at one of them clubs ‘e goes to in St. James.”
“But usually, when he visits London, he and Miss Lettice lunch at Claridge’s, or the Savoy. They’ll get a much finer lunch there than here.”
“Well, they’s no point in worryin’ yerself into more of a state ‘bout it, nah is there?”
“I suppose not.”
“What’s ‘appenin’ is appenin’, and there ain’t nuffin’ yer can do ‘bout it. Nah go serve them their tea before it gets cold.”
*The phrase “what’s to do?” in the 1920s and 1930s meant “what’s the matter?” or “what’s wrong?”.
**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.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
On Edith’s deal table is a panoply of things as she readies luncheon for Lettice and her British peerage father. The mahogany stained serving tray, the roast chicken, tureen of vegetables and gravy boat of gravy all came from an English stockist of 1:12 artisan miniatures whom I found on E-Bay. They look almost good enough to eat. The carving cutlery, which is made with great attention to detail, comes from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces.
To the right of the tray is a box of Queen’s Gravy Salt. Queen’s Gravy Salt is a British brand, and this box is an Edwardian design. Gravy Salt is a simple product it is solid gravy browning and is used to add colour and flavour to soups stews and gravy - and has been used by generations of cooks and caterers. It and the Oxo stock cubes are artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
The glass jar of herbs with its wooden stopper of cork is also a 1:12 size miniature, as are the blue porcelain mixing bowl, wooden spoon and the copper pots on the table. The smaller of the two on the right I have had since I was a teenager, and it is remarkably heavy for its size!
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan piece.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and easier to clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On the bench in the background is a toaster: a very modern convenience for a household even in the early 1920s, but essential when there was no longer a kitchen range on which to toast the bread. Although toasters had been readily available since the turn of the century, they were not commonplace in British kitchens until well after the Great War in the late 1930s. Next to the toaster is a biscuit barrel painted in the style of English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff which is a hand painted 1:12 miniature made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. It contains its own selection of miniature hand-made chocolate biscuits! Next to that stands a bread crock and various jars and preserves for toast.
